To view WebSphere Application Server Version 9.0.0 and Liberty
documentation, you can use recent releases of Eclipse or WebSphere Developer Tools. The procedure
describes how to display documentation with Eclipse for Java EE Developers (Oxygen) on Windows. To
view Version 8.5.5 and earlier documentation, you might need to use Eclipse Classic.
Procedure
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Install Eclipse or WebSphere Developer Tools for Eclipse. You can get Eclipse from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. You can view
documentation locally with either Eclipse or WebSphere Developer Tools.
For example, complete the following steps to install Eclipse for Java EE Developers
(Oxygen) on Windows.
-
Go to https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-ee-developers/oxygen2 and download an Eclipse IDE to a temporary directory on your
computer. The IDE has a name such as
eclipse-jee-oxygen-2-win32-x86_64.zip.
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Create two directories on your computer, eclipse_oxygen and
eclipse_workspace.
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Install Eclipse Oxygen to C:\eclipse_oxygen. Extract the IDE
eclipse-jee-oxygen-2-win32-x86_64.zip file into the
C:\eclipse_oxygen directory.
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Install Java SDK 8 on your computer.
Tip: If your computer has a WebSphere Application Server Version
9.0 or Version 8.5.5 installation, you likely have Java SDK 8 installed. Those products use Java SDK
8. For example, the Java SDK 8 installation on Windows is IBM 64-bit SDK for Windows, Java
Technology Edition, Version 8. If you already have a Java SDK 8 installation, write down the path to
the javaw.exe file.
The following pages have IBM Java SDK 8 downloads or installation instructions:
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If you downloaded from the server a ZIP file that contains several documentation ZIP, JAR,
or directories, extract that downloaded ZIP file into a temporary directory. The extracted ZIP, JAR,
or directories are plugins.
For example, the com.ibm.websphere.base.doc.zip file on the server
v90 directory contains mainly .jar files. The
com.ibm.websphere.base.doc_9.0.0.jar file is the English WebSphere Application Server Version 9.0 documentation plugin. The
com.ibm.websphere.base.doc.nl1_9.0.0.jar is the national language, or
translated, WebSphere Application Server Version 9.0 documentation plug-in.
These plug-ins were used for a previous version of the documentation at https://www.ibm.com/docs/SSEQTP_9.0.5.
The other extracted files provide Javadoc, glossary, OSGi, messages, installation, migration, WIM,
and Service Mapping (SM) documentation plugins.
The names of the plugins are similar to what you see in online documentation URLs. For example,
the WebSphere Application Server Javadoc at https://www.ibm.com/docs/SSEQTP_9.0.5/com.ibm.websphere.javadoc.doc/web/apidocs/overview-summary.html is in the
com.ibm.websphere.javadoc.doc_9.0.0.jar file and its plugin name is
com.ibm.websphere.javadoc.doc
.
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Copy the extracted plugins that you want to view into the eclipse\plugins
directory of your Eclipse or WebSphere Developer Tools installation.
For example, copy com.ibm.websphere.base.doc_9.0.0.jar to
C:\eclipse_oxygen\eclipse\plugins. At minimum, you need to copy the English
com.ibm.websphere.base.doc_9.0.0.jar plugin to the
eclipse\plugins directory.
For translations, you also need com.ibm.websphere.base.doc.nl1_9.0.0.jar. If
you want to view the Javadoc, glossary, OSGi, messages, installation, migration, WIM, and Service
Mapping (SM) documentation, also copy the other plugins in
com.ibm.websphere.base.doc.zip to the eclipse\plugins
directory.
You do not need the .properties files for Eclipse or WebSphere Developer
Tools. Do not copy the .properties to the eclipse\plugins
directory. The .properties files are for KCCI.
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Start Eclipse or WebSphere Developer Tools.
For example, if IBM SDK for Java 8.0.5.10 is installed in c:\jdk_80510, you
can run Eclipse Oxygen with that Java 8 and the -clean
option from a command
line.
-
Open a command line and move to the Eclipse installation directory.
cd C:\eclipse_oxygen\eclipse
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From a command line at the Eclipse installation directory, start Eclipse with the
-vm
and -clean
options.
eclipse -vm c:\jdk_80510\jre\bin\javaw.exe -clean
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When Eclipse starts, select the workspace to use and then click
Launch.
For example, select C:\eclipse_oxygen_workspace or whatever directory that
you made for the workspace. Then, click Launch.
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In Eclipse, click Help > Help Contents. The documentation that you
copied to the eclipse\plugins directory is shown in the contents.
For example, WebSphere Application Server (Distributed and IBM i), Version
9.0 under Contents is the
com.ibm.websphere.base.doc_9.0.0.jar plugin.
-
To view the documentation in a browser, right-click a file in the documentation under
Contents and select to open in a new window.
For example, right-click WebSphere Application Server (Distributed and IBM i), Version
9.0 > Open in new window.
If the Eclipse installation is running on a server that other people can access, you can send
them the browser URL so that they also can view the documentation.
To view a translation, add &lang=** or
?lang=** to the end of the URL and press Enter. For example,
to view French, use &lang=fr or ?lang=fr. See the
Eclipse documentation for specifics on how to view translations.
If the translation doesn't display in the Eclipse help, use command files to open and close the
documentation.
- Locate the org.eclipse.help.base_N.N.N.vNNN.jar file
within the C:\eclipse_oxygen\eclipse\plugins directory where
N.N.N.vNNN refers to the Eclipse version that you downloaded. For Eclipse Oxygen,
the file name is org.eclipse.help.base_4.2.102.v20171130-0510.jar.
- In the C:\eclipse_oxygen directory, create a file and name it
ic_start.cmd. With a text editor, add the following command to the file. Ensure
that the
-classpath
value specifies the path to the
org.eclipse.help.base_N.N.N.vNNN.jar file in your
installation. Also, specify the listener port for Eclipse. In this example, the port number is
8680.java -classpath eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_4.2.102.v20171130-0510.jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter -eclipsehome eclipse -port 8680 -command start -noexec -clean
- In the C:\eclipse_oxygen directory, create a file and name it
ic_stop.cmd. With a text editor, add the following command to the file. Ensure
that the
-classpath
value specifies the path to the
org.eclipse.help.base_N.N.N.vNNN.jar file in your
installation.
java -classpath eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_4.2.102.v20171130-0510.jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter -eclipsehome eclipse -command shutdown
- Run the ic_start.cmd file by double-clicking the file name or run the
command from a command line. A command window opens and stays open until you run the
ic_stop.cmd file.
- When the ic_start.cmd file is running, point your browser to
http://localhost:port_number/help/index.jsp
to start the
documentation on your computer. In this example, the URL is:
http://localhost:8680/help/index.jsp
- To view a translation, specify a language parameter in the URL.
- Select a topic within the documentation you want to view.
- Right-click on that topic and select to open the link in a new window or tab. The URL for the
new window or tab points to a specific documentation topic.
- Add &lang=** or
?lang=** to the end of the URL and press Enter. For example,
to view French in Eclipse Oxygen, add &lang=fr to the end of the topic URL
and press Enter.
You can search the documentation. Type a search string in the Search field
and click Go. The first time that you search, the indexing takes several
minutes to complete. After indexing, searches typically finish within seconds.
Viewing older documentation with Eclipse Classic
If the WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5.5 and earlier
documentation is not displaying in your Eclipse installation, consider installing the Eclipse
Classic version. Eclipse Classic is the last Eclipse version to provide the Integrated Eclipse Help
System (IEHS).
- Download Eclipse Classic 4.2.2 (Juno). This example uses the Windows
64-bit file.
- Create the c:\eclipse_classic_422 directory and extract the downloaded
eclipse-SDK-4.2.2-win32-x86_64.zip file to the directory.
- Create the c:\eclipse_classic_juno_workspace directory.
- Download documentation files from the server. Put the documentation plugins in the
c:\eclipse_classic_422\eclipse\plugins directory. Do not put the
.properties files in the eclipse\plugins directory. For
more information, see steps about plugins and
copying files to the
eclipse\plugins directory.
- Open a command window and move to the c:\eclipse_classic_422
directory\eclipse directory.
- At a command line, run a command that uses a JDK needed for Eclipse Classic. For this example,
the JDK in the c:\jdk directory is IBM 64-bit SDK for Windows AMD64/EM64T
architecture, Java Technology Edition, Version
6.
eclipse -vm c:\jdk\jre\bin\javaw.exe -clean
- Select to use the c:\eclipse_classic_juno_workspace directory for the
workspace.
- In Eclipse, select Help > Help Contents.
- To view a translation, add &lang=** to the end of
the URL and press Enter. For example, to view French, use &lang=fr.
The
national language (nl) or translated plugin for the documentation must be in
the eclipse\plugins directory along with the English plugin.