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Version: 17.10 (EOL)

Developer Guides

Overview​

These developer guides will help you get started using the SDK for developing and working with Transact Applications.

  • App Package Quick Start: Use the SDK Ant tasks to scaffold and deploy an application package into Transact Manager with a pre-built form.
  • Fluent Functions Quick Start: Scaffold and deploy a fluent function to log messages in TM and return data to the form that called it. Fluent Functions are services that are called when selected lifecycle events occur in a form.
  • Form Functions Quick Start: Write a special type of Fluent Function that is called on-demand by code in a form, rather than in response to a form lifecycle event.
  • Object Mapper Guide: Use the ObjectMapper to marshal data between Form XML Documents and Groovy Value Objects.
  • Unit Testing Guide: Develop and run unit tests using JUnit and mocking and how to debug them in the SDK environment.
  • App Test Framework Guide: Use the App Test Framework to perform functional integration testing of Transact Applications.
  • Debugging Guide: Discover various techniques to help debug an application under development.
  • Maestro SCM Quick Start: Get started integrating Maestro with your Source Code Management (SCM) systems.

Development Process​

The general development process using the Transact SDK follows this pattern:

  1. Scaffold a new project using the main transact-sdk project

    This creates a peer-level project to the transact-sdk project. At this point, the transact-sdk project is not required again until another new project needs to be scaffolded.

  2. Edit transact-auth.properties

    Provide appropriate server names and user credentials.

  3. (Optional) Edit build.properties in the new project

    Change build property configuration.

  4. Create Maestro forms if your project requires them

    Maestro is the only tool that allows you to create a new form from scratch.

    • Create and build a new form in Maestro.
    • Download the TM Form Version from the Maestro Build dialog so you can include it in a form-def.json file after scaffolding a new form or in the first form included in the template by default.
    • When you initially build the form in Maestro, ensure you check the Build Option Use Transact Functions if you will be developing with Transact Functions.

  5. Open or import the new project

    Depending on your IDE, this might need to be in a new window.

  6. Add Ant dependency libraries to the new project

    Libraries from the main transact-sdk project need to be added to the new project's Ant configuration so Transact Manager classes can be resolved correctly.

  7. Add the project's required functionality

    • Scaffold an application package into the project.
    • Scaffold new connections, services, forms and functions into the application package.
    • Develop the application code.
    • Develop the application unit test code.
    • Run the unit tests to validate the application code.

  8. Deploy the project

    Build and install the project application package to the configured server.