Programming: Java Servlet Development for Apache Tomcat with Eclipse

I was starting a not-so-small Tomcat servlet development project -- to modify and extend the Blojsom blogging server for my thesis work. I was suggested that Borland JBuilder is a better tool for servlet development. I liked JBuilder when I hadn't known Eclipse. But now that I'm so used to using Eclipse, I don't want to go back.

I was misled that I need a "Tomcat plug-in" for Eclipse to develop servlets. Spent 5-6 hours trying to get the seems-popular Sysdeo Eclipse Tomcat Launcher plugin V3.2 Beta 2 to work the way JBuiilder servlet development tool worked for me. It just didn't work the way I like.

Finally I found a discussion thread on an Eclipse site that refers to the WTP Tutorials – Building and Running a Web Application article by Naci Dai which showed me how to make Eclipse work the way I like:

According to Dai, all I have to do are:

1. Get the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) from eclipse.org (which I already have)

2. Start the WTP and go to the menu Windows -> Preferences -> Server -> Installed Runtimes. Then add an Apache Tomcat to the runtimes list.

3. To create a servlet project, use the menu File -> New Project -> Web -> Dynamic Web Project.

4. Now we can use the menu File -> New -> Class to create subclasses of javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet and start developing the servlets.

5. Important: Before we can launch the servlet we have to configure the Web Module Deployment Descriptor which is the web.xml in the WEB-INF folder.

6. To launch the servlet, click at the project name in the Project Explorer and use the menu Run -> Run As -> Run on Server.

Keywords: eclipse, java, tomcat, servlet, programming