IBM MobileFirst Studio 8.0 Plug-in for Eclipse Now Available

Edna Morales October 05, 2016

MobileFirst_Platform Announcement Cordova MobileFirst_Studio Eclipse

The IBM MobileFirst Studio 8.0 Plug-in for Eclipse is now available in the Eclipse Marketplace!
Use this plug-in to manage your Cordova projects in the Eclipse development environment.

Installing and Using IBM MobileFirst Studio 8.0 and THyM plug-ins

To install, you must be running Eclipse Mars or later. In Eclipse go to Help -> Eclipse Marketplace and search for IBM MobileFirst Studio and install the 8.0 version. You also need to install Eclipse Thym 2.0.0 through the Eclipse Marketplace.

  • Thym will allow you to import, create, and manage your Cordova projects, platforms and plugins.
  • The MobileFirst Studio plug-in exposes the various MobileFirst commands in Eclipse IDE. Specifically, it provides the following commands: Open Server Console, Preview App, Register App, Encrypt App, Pull App, Push App, Update App.

Prerequisites:
Make sure you have the MobileFirst CLI installed, as the Eclipse plug-in is dependent on it to run its commands.
You also need to have a MobileFirst Server running, either locally in the developer machine or on Bluemix.

Creating a New Cordova Project in Eclipse

  1. Click File -> New -> Other…
  2. Select Hybrid Mobile (Cordova) Application Project in the Mobile directory and click Next
  3. Name the project and click Next.
  4. Add the desired platform for your project and click Finish

Importing an Existing Cordova Project

  1. Click File -> Import…
  2. Select Import Cordova Project in the Mobile directory and click Next
  3. Click Browse… and select the root directory of the existing Cordova project
  4. Ensure the project is checked in the “Projects:” section and click Finish

Adding the MobileFirst Foundation Cordova SDK to your Cordova Project

  1. In the Project Explorer expand your cordova project, right-click the plugins directory, and select Install Cordova Plug-in
  2. In the Registry tab of the dialog box, search mfp and select cordova-plugin-mfp
  3. Click Finish

Using the MobileFirst Commands

To access MobileFirst Foundation’s shortcuts, right-click the root project directory and navigate to IBM MobileFirst Foundation. Here you will be able to select the available MobileFirst commands for your project:

Menu option Action MobileFirst command-line interface equivalent
Open Server Console When the server definition exists, opens the console so you can view the actions of the specified server. mfpdev server console
Preview App Opens the app in the browser preview mode. Opens the app in the browser preview mode.
Register App Registers the app with the server that is specified in your server definitions. mfpdev app register
Encrypt App Runs the web resource encryption tool on your app. mfpdev app webencrypt
Pull App Retrieves the existing app configuration from the server that is specified in the server definition. mfpdev app pull
Push App Sends the app configuration of your current app to the server that is specified in the build definition so you can reuse it for another app. mfpdev app push
Updated App Packages the contents of the www folder in a .zip file, and replaces the version on the server with the package. mfpdev app webupdate

Detailed instructions

Learn more in the Using the MobileFirst CLI in Eclipse tutorial.

Demo Video
Last modified on October 05, 2016