This article presents how a complete wicket project is built from ground-up in NetBeans.
Go through steps 1-3 to setup a wicket project.
Go through step 4 to create a page.
Go through steps 5-7 to deploy, test and debug the page according to your development methodology.
1. Create a web project
File → New Project… → Java Web → Web Application → Next.
New Project dialog in NetBeans
Give the project a name, e.g. WicketFun and click Next.
New Web Application dialog in NetBeans
Accept the embedded GlassFish server by clicking Finish.
Server Settings of a project in NetBeans
The project should appear in the Projects tab.
Handy Project tab of NetBeans
2. Concentrate all jars
Download wicket from wicket.apache.org → Releases → Wicket 1.4 → Select an appropriate mirror and get apache-wicket-1.4-m3.zip
Download simple logging facade from slf4j.org → Download → slf4j-1.5.2.zip
Create a folder and place inside the following:
- apache-wicket-1.4-m3\lib\wicket-1.4-m3.jar
- slf4j-1.5.2\slf4j-simple-1.5.2.jar
- slf4j-1.5.2\slf4j-api-1.5.2.jar
Add these jars to the classpath by right clicking on the project → Properties → Libraries → Add JAR/Folder
Some extensions of great interest are the date-time functionality (wicket-datetime-1.4-m2.jar) and the interface to Spring (wicket-spring-1.4-m2.jar).
3. Make the WebApplication
Wicket’s starting point is a WebApplication.
Right click on project → New → Java Class… → Provide the name MyApplication, the package application and click Finish.
New Java Class dialog in NetBeans
This class should extend WebApplication and implement getHomePage() method.
package application;
import org.apache.wicket.protocol.http.WebApplication;
public class MyApplication extends WebApplication {
@Override
public Class getHomePage() {
return null;
}
}
For the time being just let it return null.
In the Projects tab navigate to WicketFun → Web Pages → WEB-INF → double-click on web.xml → XML and paste the following elements
<filter>
<filter-name>WicketApplication</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.apache.wicket.protocol.http.WicketFilter</filter-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>applicationClassName</param-name>
<param-value>application.MyApplication</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>WicketApplication</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
Alternatively, you may go to Filters → Add Filter Element… button to declare it manually. Here’s how web.xml should look.
Viewing the source of web.xml in NetBeans
4. Make a page
Let’s call it Hello. We should create Hello.html and Hello.java! As simple as it gets.
Right click on project → New → Java Class… → Provide the name Hello, the package pages and click Finish.
This class should extend WebPage and provide a default no-arg constructor.
package pages;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.WebPage;
public class Hello extends WebPage {
public Hello() {
// wicket action here
}
}
Right click on project → New → HTML… → Provide the name Hello select Source Packages as the location and click Browse…
New HTML file dialog in NetBeans
Select Source Packages → double-click on pages.
Specifying where to store the HTML file in NetBeans
In this way the html file will be bundled in the same directory with the class. Just press Finish to complete.
Let’s make this page simply display a random number.
<html>
<body>
This is the current number: <span wicket:id="number"></span>
</body>
</html>
Back to the class for some action.
package pages;
import java.util.Random;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.WebPage;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.basic.Label;
public class Hello extends WebPage {
public Hello() {
Integer random = new Random().nextInt();
add(new Label("number", random.toString()));
}
}
5. Declare the home page
Every time you create a page you’d like to test it.
Just go to the getHomePage() of your WebApplication and make it return your page.
package application;
import org.apache.wicket.protocol.http.WebApplication;
import pages.Hello;
public class MyApplication extends WebApplication{
@Override
public Class getHomePage() {
return Hello.class;
}
}
In this way when the application context is called on the browser, e.g. http://localhost:8080/WicketFun, this page will be called.
6. Run the page
Right click on the project → Run
Hit the refresh button a few times to see various random numbers.
A simple Wicket page that displays a random number
7. Debug the page
Wicket keeps the java code totally independent from the HTML markup. This design makes debugging easy.
Make a breakpoint by clicking on the left of the desired line.
Right click on the project → Debug
Placing a breakpoint in the Java editor of NetBeans
Review
Wicket is an enjoyable frameword that fits well in NetBeans.
- Every web application IS-A WebApplication.
- Every page IS-A WebPage.
- Every html file has an associated java file.
I have done all in the article, but I can’t get the right website. It is 404 wrong. I am just try to learn the wicket. I have spent two days on eclipse to run the helloWorld and all fails.
Would you give me some help??
I really appreciate it.
I wonder that why not use the Wicket framework when create the project and how to do more in you way.
@Vic – it should work for Netbeans, with the specifications, not in Eclipse!