Creating a Maven Project in Eclipse

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a simple Maven project in Eclipse. I assume you already have Eclipse installed. If you don't have Maven installed yet, read my article on installing Maven, before proceeding. This tutorial also uses Eclipse and the m2eclipse plugin. Read my tutorial on setting up Maven in Eclipse, if you haven't setup the m2eclipse plugin.

Now that you have Eclipse, Maven, and the m2eclipse plugin installed, let's get started creating a simple Maven project in Eclipse. Within Eclipse, click the "File -> New -> Project..." menu option. Expand the Maven option, select "Maven Project" and click "Next >".

You'll be presented with the "New Maven Project" dialog. Leave the default options as-is and click "Next >".

The next dialog shows you a list of the archetypes available. An archetype is a packaged application framework that is reusable and redistributable. For this example, choose the "maven-archetype-quickstart" archetype and click "Next >".

Next, we need to provide a group id and artifact id for our Maven project. The Group ID will be used to identify your project across all of your Maven projects. The Group ID naming scheme is the same as a package name in Java. Typically, your Group ID will be your domain name followed by the name of you project, and possibly followed by a sub-project name, if you plan to have multiple sub-projects or subsystems within your main application. The Artifact ID is the name you want for your JAR file when your project is packaged and deployed. For this tutorial, enter "org.examples.quickstart" for the Group Id and "quickstart-app" for the Artifact Id. Leave the version number as-is and enter whatever you'd like for your initial package name. I chose org.examples.quickstart for my project. Click the "Finish" button.

After clicking "Finish", you'll find your Maven project has been created and viewable in your Eclipse project explorer.

Setting Up Maven in Eclipse

The easiest way to use any tool (in my opinion) is to have it integrated with your IDE. This tutorial shows you how to setup Maven in your Eclipse IDE. If you don't already have Maven installed, read my tutorial on installing Maven before proceeding with this tutorial.

With Maven and Eclipse installed on your PC, the next step is to install the m2eclipse plugin. We'll use the Eclipse marketplace to install the m2eclipse plugin. From within Eclipse, click the Help -> Marketplace menu option. Next, click on the "Search" tab. Enter "maven integration" in the search field and click the "Go" button. When the search is complete, there will be a list of options. Scroll down to find "Maven Integration for Eclipse" and click the "Install" button.

 

The next dialog will ask you to confirm the installation. Select just the "m2e - Maven Integration for Eclipse" option and click the "Next >" button.

You'll be prompted to accept the terms of the license agreement. Accept the terms and click the "Finish" button. At the end of the installation process, you'll be prompted to restart Eclipse. Proceed by restarting your Eclipse IDE. To begin using m2eclipse, read my tutorial on creating a simple Maven project.

Installing Maven on Windows

It goes without saying, that Maven depends on Java. This tutorial assumes that you're running at least version 1.5, so before proceeding with this tutorial, run "java -version" from your command prompt to verify the version of your Java installation.

You can download Maven from the Apache website: http://maven.apache.org/download.cgi

Simply download the binary ZIP of the most recent version to your desktop.

After downloading the ZIP file, unzip it to whatever directory you like. I'll assume (for simplicity), that you've unzipped it to the root of your C: drive, resulting in C:\apache-maven-3.0.5\

After you've unzipped the binary, there are two environment variables you need to set. The first is M2_HOME. The other is to append the PATH variable.

To test your Maven installation, open a new command prompt and type the "mvn -v" command. If you've installed it correctly, you should get a description of your Maven installation. If you don't see the Maven description, double-check that your M2_HOME and PATH environment variables are set correctly.