Tutorial #1: Getting started with Play Framework 2.3.4

In this blog we would set up the development environment with Play and Eclipse which would drive us through rest of the tutorial series.  We would be running this blog as a series and we would be looking at various aspects of play with this blog.

In this tutorial we will discuss about the following topics of Play Framework:

• Installing Play
• New application
• Layout of Play application
• Play console
• Setting-up Eclipse

∗ Installing Play

Prerequisites: To run the Play framework, you need JDK 6 or later

Step-1: Download Activator from here

Step-2: Go to the ZIP file path and UNZIP it

anand@anand-singh:~$ cd softwares/
anand@anand-singh:~/softwares$ unzip typesafe-activator-1.2.10-minimal.zip
Archive:  typesafe-activator-1.2.10-minimal.zip
   creating: activator-1.2.10-minimal/
  inflating: activator-1.2.10-minimal/activator.bat  
  inflating: activator-1.2.10-minimal/activator  
  inflating: activator-1.2.10-minimal/activator-launch-1.2.10.jar  
anand@anand-singh:~/softwares$

Step-3: Set the activator to your path

anand@anand-singh:~$ vi .bashrc
export TYPESAFE_ACTIVATOR=/home/anand/softwares/activator-1.2.10-minimal
export PATH=$PATH:$TYPESAFE_ACTIVATOR

To check
anand@anand-singh:~$ which activator
/home/anand/softwares/activator-1.2.10-minimal/activator

Step-4: Check the activator command

anand@anand-singh:~$ activator -help

Now your system is ready to create a new Play application.

NOTE: If you don’t want to setup the activator into your path then just unzip and go to the activator script path and use it.

anand@anand-singh:~$ cd softwares/activator-1.2.10-minimal/
anand@anand-singh:~/softwares/activator-1.2.10-minimal$ ./activator -help

The result of "./activator -help" command is same like above screen.

∗ New application

There are several way to create new application using activator command:

$ activator new play-scala-tutorial-one play-scala

$ activator new play-scala-tutorial-one

∗ Layout of Play application

app                      → Application sources
 └ assets                → Compiled asset sources
    └ stylesheets        → Typically LESS CSS sources
    └ javascripts        → Typically CoffeeScript sources
 └ controllers           → Application controllers
 └ models                → Application business layer
 └ views                 → Templates
build.sbt                → Application build script
conf                     → Configurations files
 └ application.conf      → Main configuration file
 └ routes                → Routes definition
public                   → Public assets
 └ stylesheets           → CSS files
 └ javascripts           → Javascript files
 └ images                → Image files
project                  → sbt configuration files
 └ build.properties      → Marker for sbt project
 └ plugins.sbt           → sbt plugins including play declaration
lib                      → Unmanaged libraries dependencies
logs                     → Standard logs folder
 └ application.log       → Default log file
target                   → Generated stuff
 └ scala-2.11.1            
    └ cache              
    └ classes            → Compiled class files
    └ classes_managed    → Managed class files (templates, ...)
    └ resource_managed   → Managed resources (less, ...)
    └ src_managed        → Generated sources (templates, ...)
test                     → source folder for unit or functional tests

∗ Play Console

$ cd play-scala-tutorial-one
$ activator
[info] Loading project definition from /home/anand/projects/knoldus/play-scala-tutorial-one/project
[info] Set current project to play-scala-tutorial-one (in build file:/home/anand/projects/knoldus/play-scala-tutorial-one/)
[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ 

To Help:
[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ help run
Runs a main class, passing along arguments provided on the command line.
[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ help compile
Compiles sources.
[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ 


To Compile:
[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ compile
[success] Total time: 0 s, completed 3 Oct, 2014 12:11:34 PM
[play-scala-tutorial-one] $

The Play console is just a normal sbt console, so you can use sbt features such as triggered execution.

For example, using ~ compile

[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ ~ compile

The compilation will be triggered each time you change a source file.

If you are using ~ run

[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ ~ run

The triggered compilation will be enabled while a development server is running.

You can also do the same for ~ test, to continuously test your project each time you modify a source file:

[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ ~ test

∗ Setting-up Eclipse

[play-scala-tutorial-one] $ eclipse

Import the application into your Workspace with the File/Import/General/Existing project… menu (compile your project first).

This is the start of tutorial series, from next week onwards we would be working on this tutorial blog to make it grow. We would look at how we can make it more usable and readable, then we would be adding next tutorial of “Using WebJars, jQuery, Bootstrap & Bootswatch with Play application”. If you have any question then feel free to comment on the same 🙂 Stay tuned.

Next : Tutorial #2