Installing Liferay Developer Studio

Liferay Developer Studio 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. In this tutorial, you’ll learn the different methods available for installing Liferay Developer Studio. Before beginning the installation process, view Developer Studio’s Compatibility Matrix to get acquainted with its supported Liferay versions and application servers.

Important: If you’re upgrading your Liferay Developer Studio instance to version 3.1, you must install a new Developer Studio bundle. You cannot install an update for this upgrade. Your Liferay Workspace instance and its contents are backwards compatible and can be copied to the new 3.1 version.

Install the Liferay Developer 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 Developer 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 the Liferay Developer Studio installer. Be sure to choose the installer appropriate for your operating system (e.g., Windows, MacOS, Linux).

   You may be prompted for your liferay.com username and password before downloading the Developer Studio installer. Since Developer Studio 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 Developer 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. Click Next to begin the installation process. Select the installation folder for your Liferay Developer Studio instance. Then click Next.

   

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

5. Liferay Developer Studio provides 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).

   You’ll need to choose the Liferay bundle you plan to use in your Liferay Workspace: Liferay DXP Bundle or Community Edition Bundle. Then choose Next.

   

   Figure 2: Choose the Liferay bundle you plan to use.

   If you selected Liferay DXP Bundle, you’re also required to provide your liferay.com email and password.

6. Click Next to finish the installation process for your Developer Studio instance.

Congratulations! You’ve installed Liferay Developer Studio! It’s now available in the folder you specified. To run Developer Studio, execute the DeveloperStudio executable. A Liferay Workspace has also been initialized in that same folder. For more information on the Liferay Workspace installation related to this installation process, see the Installing Liferay Workspace section.

Install Liferay Developer Studio into Eclipse Environment

To install Developer 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/stable/.

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

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

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

Install Liferay Developer Studio into Eclipse from a ZIP File

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

1. Go to the Liferay Developer Studio downloads page. From the drop-down menu, select Developer Studio Update Site 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 Developer Studio Update Site .zip file. Then press OK.

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

   

   Figure 3: Make sure to check all the Developer 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 Developer 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. Click the Options button () 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.