Oracle: Feel the fun of Oracle Weblogic & JDeveloper 12c on Mac OS X

Oracle fusion middleware 12c stack is now completed and ready for use and supports cloud platform technology stack. The story Begins by releasing Oracle Weblogic 12c last year 2012, then followed by Oracle database 12c this year 2013, and by this month of July the development IDE JDeveloper 12c (2.1.2.0.0) has been released.

WebLogic 12.1.2 is now available. Moreover, is also bundled with the new JDeveloper 12c. WebLogic 12.1.2 comes in two flavors one of size 179MB zip distribution offers Java EE 6 Full Profile development and includes WebLogic Server and Coherence. The generic installer also includes WebLogic Server and Coherence and is patchable via OPatch.

There are two interesting supported components available in WebLogic 12.1.2 out of the box, that already part of JEE 7, one of them is the Websockets protocol support, and the other is JSON Binding via EclipseLink 2.4.2 MOXy's JSON-binding.

JDeveloper 12c comes with a big bunch of enhancements and technology support, one of interesting components is the support for Java EE and Web Development as the following:

• Java EE 6 Support: JDeveloper wizards and editors have been updated to work with Java EE 6 specifications, including EJB 3.1, Servlet 3.0, CDI, JPA 2.0, EL 2.2, and more.
• EJB 3.1 Support: JDeveloper provides support for new EJB 3.1 features including:
• Singleton Session Bean
• Simplified No Interface Client View
• Asynchronous Session Bean Invocations
• TopLink/JPA 2.0:
  
  • TopLink supports the following JPA 2.0 features:
  • JPA 2.0 project type and JPA 2.0 persistence unit properties
  • Delimited and derived identifiers
  • Mixed access
  • Unidirectional one-to-many mappings
  • Validation mode
  • Element collection
  • Embeddable mapping
• HTML5, MathML and CSS3 Support: Updated editors for working with latest HTML5 and CSS3 content.
• CSS editor: Added ability to invoke Quick doc feature for CSS properties and skinning keys, and other editor improvements.
• JSP to Facelets conversion: User may optionally choose to convert a project's JSP/JSPX content to Facelets.

For more about all new features of JDeveloper 12c, visit what's new in JDeveloper 12c.

The new abbreviation that sticks to the version 12c (is c for Cloud),and it means that the JDeveloper is an enabled Cloud development IDE.

One of the most interesting features of the JDeveloper 12c that worthwhile is its installer, it is very easy to install and runs on mac OS X operating system rather than its previous 11g versions series, avoiding much of boilerplate system configurations to just install it.

So let's see how we can install it on Mac OS, but first let us get the required software to complete the installation process successfully.

Pre-requests software:

1. Java Development kit 7 update 25+ or less, it is a critical piece of software that allows the installer to pass the prerequisites successfully. It could be downloaded from here.
2. Download the JDeveloper 12c Generic installer the works on all platforms (it is a jar package).

That's all; let's now go through the installation process.

Installation process

1. First open your terminal, and type the following command:
   
   You should make sure that your java version is version 7 pointed out in your system class path, if version is different, you should make your system class path includes the java 7 version.

   If everything is okay then you will see output like the following:

   
   
2. From the same terminal, change your directory to your JDeveloper downloaded jar file, for example I have downloaded the jar file inside a folder named “Oracle JDeveloper 12c (12.1.2.0.0) (Build 6668)” on my mac desktop. To begin installing the JDeveloper issue the following commands:
   
   Then followed by:
   
   If everything is going okay then you should see the following output:
   
   
   Then the following screen will popped up, and the installation process begins. Choose your inventory, which will, includes your JDeveloper system preferences folder, and OS group permission. I have changed it from stuff to be everyone, and clicked Ok button.(This screen will appear only on mac OS, but if you are using windows OS, the wizard will pop up for the installation and the process will begin from the next step):
   
   
   
   
   
3. On the next screens “Oracle JDeveloper studio installer”, it includes five wizard steps, click next on each of them till finishing the installation, and seeing the following screen:
   
   
   
   
   
4. Click next and the summary page comes with all installation log, including three options as in the following figure, for me I have choose the first option.
   
   
   
   
5. Click finish and JDeveloper will start with new splash screen as the following:
   
   
   
   
   
6. After splash screen finished preparing JDeveloper components, the main IDE should open with a new and neat look and feel:
   
   
   
   
   
7. From Tools menu item, click check for update menu, you can make your new JDeveloper 12c, most updated with required components, one of recommended components is jUnit component.
   
   
   
   
   
8. After finished the updates, we need to create a default domain of Weblogic 12.1.2 bundled server, from run menu click "Start server instance":
   
   
   
   
   
9. The Weblogic configuration dialog will appears to provide password, and other configurations:
   
   
   
   
   
10. Click Ok button and the JDeveloper log, will contains all creation and running conversation entries, wait till you find your log ends with the following entries:
    
    

Hence, we are here, than we have finished the installation process of JDeveloper 12c, and created a Weblogic 12c domain, so you can rock and give your hand the touch of JEE6 on the new release.

Happy coding :)