Java developers use a wide variety of tools and development environments. Liferay makes every effort to remain tool agnostic, so you can choose the tools that work best for you. To that end, we provide a Plugins Software Development Kit (SDK) based on Apache Ant that can be used along with any editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Much of this guide uses the Plugins SDK and a text editor, but use whatever tool you’re most comfortable with. As an alternative to the Plugins SDK, in Chapter 10 we discuss Liferay IDE, a plugin for Eclipse that simplifies development for Liferay.
We discuss the following topics in this chapter:
- Initial Setup: Install the Plugins SDK and configure it to use with your Liferay Portal server.
- Structure of the SDK: Where to develop your plugin within the SDK and what Apache Ant targets are available.
- Best Practices: Helpful ways for organizing your plugin projects.
Setting up the Plugins SDK is easy. Let’s get to it.