The skeletons give qooxdoo users a jump start for developing their custom applications. The skeletons provide the perfect environment to start from and are pre-configured to use the powerful build process.

• Users of the SVN repository need to copy the whole application/skeleton folder to start with a skeleton, without the .svn files!
• Users of the downloadable "SDK" will find the skeletons already included in the package. The current location is something like frontend/application/qooxdoo-0.7.1-skeleton.[zip|tar.gz].
• Remember that the downloadable build archive does not contain any skeletons.

The skeletons are deliberately made available as archives only. It is to enforce that the user extracts the skeletons’ content to a place outside the qooxdoo folder. This recommended practice allows updates to newer qooxdoo versions at any time without directly affecting the storage location of the custom application.

To uncompress the archives Windows users may use their favorite file utility (e.g. 7-Zip) or the built-in file extracting feature of Windows XP. Of course, the archives may also be extracted from the command-line using command-line utilities like unzip or tar, depending on your platform.

The skeleton demonstrates a basic application with a single button. It includes support for custom directories for static resources like images, etc.

Before generating the included sample application, all you have to do is to configure the location of the corresponding qooxdoo folder in your given environment: Open the Makefile inside the skeleton directory in your favorite text editor and change the variables QOOXDOO_PATH and QOOXOO_URI to point to your qooxdoo folder.

For QOOXDOO_PATH please replace PLEASE_DEFINE_QOOXDOO_PATH with either the absolute path of the existing qooxdoo folder or the relative path from the current Makefile to the qooxdoo folder. If you extracted the skeleton archive alongside to your qooxdoo installation, this would be something like ../qooxdoo-0.7-sdk.

For file:// access you are ready now. Jump to next step “Generating the application”. If you want to access your new application through a webserver, you have to set QOOXDOO_URI, too. But note that this will disable file:// access in at least version 0.7.1 - you must take your preferences here.

For QOOXDOO_URI (not included by default in version 0.7.1)) please replace PLEASE_DEFINE_QOOXDOO_URI with either an absolute URI working for your installed web server or a relative path from the current index.html to the qooxdoo folder. Since the index.html is in the source subdirectory, this could be like ../../qooxdoo-0.7-sdk, or just ../$(QOOXDOO_PATH)

Note for Windows users

Relative paths are generally preferable because cygwin root paths are not supported by windows. Generally in cygwin the drives are mapped to cygdrive e.g. /cygdrive/c/foo/bar. This should work, but only for the build version. Relative paths are correctly handled by both Windows and Cygwin.

After you have successfully configured the Makefile you are ready to generate a sample application. Simply execute the following command inside the sample application folder:

$ make

It produces a working application which you can start by opening the file source/index.html in your favorite browser.

The source version includes the original class files without any compression. You don’t need to execute this again after each change of your classes (which saves some time compared to the build version described below). The only situations you need to execute it again is when you do one of the following:

• add or remove an own class
• rename your classes/files
• adding dependencies to existing classes

At any time of the development process you can generate the so-called “build version” of the application. Please execute the following command:

$ make build

You will get a working application under build/index.html. Please open this file in your browser.

You can even generate an individual API documentation for your custom application. The API viewer will include both the qooxdoo classes and your application classes.

$ make api

You must execute this again, if you have changed your classes and want to update the content of your API viewer.

The next step would be to modify the skeleton and evolve it into an application you want to see implemented.

• The HOWTO build a qooxdoo "Hello World" application tutorial will take you through the first simple modifications to get you going.
• For a better understanding of the underlying structure, have a look at the anatomy of a qooxdoo application.

Beyond that the following pages explain in more detail some key aspects of qooxdoo applications you might want to look at. Enjoy!

• The basic HTML file
• The directory structure
• Understanding namespaces
• Defining your own Classes
• Configuring custom resources
• Using Events