Installing Liferay Dev Studio DXP

Liferay Dev Studio DXP is a plugin for Eclipse that provides many Liferay-specific features and additional enterprise only features. You can install it into your existing Eclipse environment, or Liferay provides a bundled version. Before beginning the installation process, view Dev Studio’s Compatibility Matrix to get acquainted with its supported Liferay versions and application servers.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the different methods available for installing Liferay Dev Studio:

• install the Dev Studio bundle from scratch
• install Dev Studio into an existing Eclipse instance using an update URL
• install Dev Studio into an existing Eclipse instance using a ZIP file

Important: If you’re installing Dev Studio into an existing Eclipse environment, you must be on Eclipse Oxygen or newer. For instructions on upgrading to Oxygen, see Eclipse’s upgrade documentation. With this particular upgrade, you should also deactivate the current available update sites in the Window → Preferences → Install/Update → Available Software Sites menu to ensure a successful upgrade (e.g., Neon).

Install the Liferay Dev Studio Bundle

1. Download and install Java. Liferay DXP runs on Java, so you’ll need it to run everything else. Because you’ll be developing apps for Liferay DXP in Liferay Dev Studio, the Java Development Kit (JDK) is required. It is an enhanced version of the Java Environment used for developing new Java technology. You can download the Java SE JDK from the Java Downloads page.

2. Download Liferay’s latest 3.2.x Project SDK with Dev Studio DXP executable that correlates to your operating system. The Project SDK includes Dev Studio DXP, Liferay Workspace, and Blade CLI.

   You may be prompted for your liferay.com username and password before downloading the Dev Studio DXP installer. Since Dev Studio DXP includes access to Liferay DXP, you must verify that you have rights to use it.

   Your credentials are not saved locally; they’re saved as a token in the ~/.liferay folder. The token is used by your Dev Studio’s Liferay Workspace if you ever decide to redownload a Liferay DXP bundle. Furthermore, the Liferay DXP bundle that was downloaded in your workspace is also copied to your ~/.liferay/bundles folder, so if you decide to initialize another Liferay DXP instance of the same version, the bundle is not re-downloaded. See the Adding a Liferay Bundle to a Workspace for more information on this topic.

   Important: The token generator sometimes has issues generating a token for workspaces built behind a proxy. If you’re unable to automatically generate a workspace token, you can generate one manually.

3. Run the installer. You may need to allow permission for the installer to run, depending on your operating system and where you want to install it.

4. Select the Java Runtime to use for the installation process. Then click Next.

5. Click Next to begin the installation process. Select the installation folder for your Liferay Dev Studio instance. Then click Next.

   

   Figure 1: Choose the folder your Dev Studio instance should reside.

6. Input the Liferay DXP activation key to set up the Liferay DXP bundle packaged with Dev Studio DXP. Then click Next.

   Dev Studio installs Liferay Workspace by default, which is a developer environment used to build and manage Liferay DXP projects. The installer automatically installs Liferay Workspace and its dedicated command line tool (Blade CLI).

7. Configure proxy settings for your Project SDK. If you must use Dev Studio behind a firewall, you may want to configure the proxy settings. See the Liferay IDE Proxy Settings and Liferay Workspace Proxy Settings tutorials for more information. Skip this step if you don’t need this.

   

   Figure 2: Configure your Project SDK's proxy settings, if necessary.

8. Click Next to finish the installation process for your Dev Studio instance.

Congratulations! You’ve installed Liferay Dev Studio DXP! It’s now available in the folder you specified. To run Dev Studio, execute the DeveloperStudio executable. A Liferay Workspace has also been initialized in that same folder.

Install Liferay Dev Studio into Eclipse Environment

To install Dev Studio using an update URL, follow these steps:

1. In Eclipse, go to Help → Install New Software….

2. In the Work with field, copy in the URL http://releases.liferay.com/tools/ide/latest/milestone/.

3. You’ll see the Dev Studio components in the list below. Check them off and click Next.

4. Accept the terms of the agreements. Click Next, and Dev Studio is installed. Like other Eclipse plugins, you must restart Eclipse to use them.

Liferay Dev Studio is now installed in your existing Eclipse environment.

Install Liferay Dev Studio into Eclipse from a ZIP File

To install Dev Studio using a Zip file, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Liferay Dev Studio DXP downloads page. From the drop-down menu, select Developer Studio Updatesite Zip and click Download.

2. In Eclipse, go to Help → Install New Software….

3. In the Add dialog, click the Archive button and browse to the location of the downloaded Liferay Dev Studio Update Site .zip file. Then press OK.

4. You’ll see the Dev Studio components in the list below. Check them off and click Next.

   

   Figure 3: Make sure to check all the Dev Studio components you wish to install.

5. Accept the terms of the agreements and click Next, and Developer Studio is installed. Like other Eclipse plugins, you must restart Eclipse to use them.

Awesome! You’ve installed Liferay Dev Studio in your existing Eclipse environment.

Generating a Workspace Token Manually

If you run into any issues with generating your token automatically, you can follow the steps below to manually create one.

1. Navigate to www.liferay.com and log in to your account.

2. Hover over your profile picture in the top-right corner and select Account Home.

3. Select Account Settings from the left menu.

4. Click Authorization Tokens from the right menu under the Miscellaneous heading.

   

   Figure 4: You can manually create your workspace token in the Authorization Tokens menu.

5. Select Add Token, give it a device name, and click Generate. The device name can be set to any string; it’s for bookkeeping purposes only.

6. Create a file named ~/.liferay/token and copy the generated token into that file.

   

   Figure 5: The generated token is available to copy.

   Make sure there are no new lines or white space in the file. It should only be one line.

You’ve successfully generated your token manually and it’s now available for your installer to access. If you haven’t run the installer, you can do so now. If you’ve already run the installer, you can set the DXP bundle to download in the gradle.properties file of your workspace. See the Adding a Liferay Bundle to a Workspace tutorial for details.