AEM Component Generator

AEM Component Generator is a java project that enables developers to generate the base structure of an AEM component using a JSON configuration file specifying component and dialog properties and other configuration options.

Generated code includes:

• cq:dialog for component properties
  • dialogshared/dialogglobal for shared/global component properties
  • Supports all basic field types, multifields, and image upload fields
• Sling Model
  • Includes fully coded interface and implementation classes
  • Follows WCM Core component standards
  • Enables FE-only development for most authorable components
• HTL file for rendering the component
  • Includes an object reference to the Sling Model
  • Includes the default WCM Core placeholder template for when the component is not yet configured
• Stubbed clientlib (JS/CSS) following component client library patterns of WCM Core

Dependencies

The AEM Component Generator itself bundles all the dependencies it needs to execute. However, the generated code has dependencies on ACS AEM Commons version 4.2.0+ for the following sling model injector annotations.

• @ChildResourceFromRequest for injecting child resources as model classes (e.g. image fields, composite multifields)
• @SharedValueMapValue for injecting shared/global component property field values

How To Use

To see the AEM Component Generator in action, watch this video. Detailed steps for using the generator are found below.

Step 1: Clone the project from github.

Step 2: Update the demo config file (data-config.json) to your company defaults, removing references to NewCo/newco in the project-settings and group values.

Step 3: Build the project by running mvn clean install from the main project folder.

Step 4: Copy the generated component-generator-N.N.jar file (under the target folder) to a location from which you wish to generate AEM component code. Note that code will be generated at a relative path from which the generator is executed, which can be different from where the jar file is located.

Step 5: Copy the data-config.json file from this project to the same location and update with relevant configs for your component.

• project-settings: contains configuration options related to your AEM project
• project-settings.code-owner: the name of the company/user this code belongs to - will replace ${CODEOWNER} in the template files with this configured value
• project-settings.copyright-year: the copyright year this code belongs to - will replace ${YEAR} in the template files with this configured value. If one is not specified, will default to the current year.
• project-settings.bundle-path: path to the java code of your main bundle
• project-settings.test-path: path to the java code of your test cases
• project-settings.apps-path: path to the /apps root
• project-settings.component-path: path to the project's components directory, relative to the /apps folder
• project-settings.model-interface-pkg: Java package for the interface model objects
• project-settings.model-impl-pkg: Java package for the implementation model objects
• name: folder name for the component
• title: human readable component name, also used as the title for dialogs
• group: component group
• type: component folder type - content, form, structure
• options.js: whether to create an empty JS lib for the component (shared with CSS lib)
• options.jstxt: whether to create the js.txt mapping file within the clientlib. Set to false when this file is not needed within your clientlib
• options.css: whether to create an empty CSS lib for the component (shared with JS lib)
• options.csstxt: whether to create the css.txt mapping file within the clientlib. Set to false when this file is not needed within your clientlib
• options.html: whether to create a default HTML file for the component
• options.html-content: generate dialog fields in the html file
• options.slingmodel: whether to create a sling model for the component
  • Class name is derived from converting "name" prop above to camel case (e.g. "google-maps" -> GoogleMaps/GoogleMapsImpl)
  • Fields are derived from dialog properties (see below)
• options.testclass: whether to create a test class for the component's sling model
  • Test methods will fail with reason as yet to be implemented.
• options.junit-major-version: provide major version identifier of junit to generate test classes accordingly. Currently, 4 or 5 is supported.
• options.content-exporter: whether to configure sling model for content export
• options.model-adaptables: array of adaptables to include in the Sling Model ('request' and/or 'resource')
• options.generic-javadoc: whether to create generic javadoc for the getters in the model interface
• options.properties-tabs: properties to create tabs structure in standard dialog for this component. If empty, properties will be created without tab structure
  • options.properties-tabs[].id: the tab "name"
  • options.properties-tabs[].label: the "title" of the tab
  • options.properties-tabs[].fields: all the properties to be added in the tab.
• options.properties-shared-tabs: shared properties to create tabs structure for this component in shared dialog. If empty, properties will be created without tab structure in shared dialog for this component.
  • options.properties-shared-tabs[].id: the tab "name"
  • options.properties-shared-tabs[].label: the "title" of the tab
  • options.properties-shared-tabs[].fields: all the properties to be added in the tab.
• options.properties-global-tabs: global properties to create in tabs for this component in global dialog. If empty, properties will be created without tab structure in global dialog for this component.
  • options.properties-global-tabs[].id: the tab "name"
  • options.properties-global-tabs[].label: the "title" of the tab
  • options.properties-global-tabs[].fields: all the properties to be added in the tab.
• options.properties: properties to create in standard dialog for this component. If empty, no standard dialog will be created. This sample includes one of every possible sling:resourceType
  • options.properties[].field: the property "name" and java variable name.
  • options.properties[].javadoc: the javadoc associated with the property
  • options.properties[].type: the property field type
  • options.properties[].label: the fieldLabel associated with the property
  • options.properties[].description: the fieldDescription associated with the property
  • options.properties[].items: any child items needed for the specified property type
  • options.properties[].attributes: any additional attributes to be associated with property in cq:dialog
  • options.properties[].model-name: (Multifield type Only) the name of the sling model class generated for a multifield property
  • options.properties[].use-existing-model: (Multifield type Only) whether or not to generate a new sling model for the multifield property
  • options.properties[].json-expose: by default, the content exporter will ignore all properties unless json-expose is set to true
  • options.properties[].json-property: the json key for the property to be used when content export is configured
• options.properties-shared: properties to create in shared dialog for this component. If empty, no shared dialog will be created
• options.properties-global: properties to create in global dialog for this component. If empty, no global dialog will be created

Step 6: To generate a component, navigate to the main folder of your AEM project and execute the following command. Note that paths specified in project-settings configs (above) will be relative to this location.

$ java -jar <jarfile> <configfile>

• jarfile: path to component-generator-N.N.jar file (replacing N.N with the applicable numbers)
• configfile: path to data-config.json file

Example:

$ java -jar scripts/compgen/component-generator-1.0.jar scripts/compgen/data-config.json

Successful component generation should result in output similar to the following:

[17:57:50.427 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/.content.xml
[17:57:50.441 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/_cq_dialog/.content.xml
[17:57:50.443 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/dialogglobal/.content.xml
[17:57:50.446 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/dialogshared/.content.xml
[17:57:50.447 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/clientlibs/.content.xml
[17:57:50.453 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/clientlibs/site/css/demo-comp.less
[17:57:50.454 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/clientlibs/site/js/demo-comp.js
[17:57:50.456 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/newco/components/content/demo-comp/demo-comp.html
[17:57:50.456 [INFO ] ComponentUtils @85] - --------------* Component 'demo-comp' successfully generated *--------------
[17:57:50.476 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: core/src/main/java/com/newco/aem/base/core/models/DemoComp.java
[17:57:50.488 [INFO ] CommonUtils @93] - Created: core/src/main/java/com/newco/aem/base/core/models/impl/DemoCompImpl.java
[17:57:50.488 [INFO ] JavaCodeModel @103] - --------------* Sling Model successfully generated *--------------

Troubleshooting

JSON Export Failing

If you attempt to fetch your component's model json via a .model.json selector/extension and get the following error:

Invalid recursion selector value 'model'

Cannot serve request to /content/<site>/<path-to-page>/jcr:content/<path-to-component>.model.json in org.apache.sling.servlets.get.DefaultGetServlet

The most likely cause is that your sling model is not actually deployed to AEM. To validate, first check the bundles console in AEM at /system/console/bundles to validate that your java bundle containing the generated sling model is indeed on the server and in Active state. Assuming it is, check the Sling Models console at /system/console/status-slingmodels to validate that your sling model is deployed and running. The default demo-comp component produced by the data-config.json provided with the project should generate a fully deployable and functioning sling model. If you are experiencing this error with the demo component, the most likely cause is that either your build failed to deploy the java bundle to the AEM server, or the bundle deployed to the server but is not running.

Shared Property Injection Failing

If your logs have an error that looks like this:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No Sling Models Injector registered for source 'shared-component-properties-valuemap'.


This is because you do not have Shared Component Properties configured on your AEM instance. This often happens to people experimenting with the demo data-config.json provided with the project, which creates a component with both a shared and a global property for testing.

To resolve this issue, you can configure Shared Component Properties on your AEM instance if you plan to use that feature in your components. If you dont plan to use Shared Component Properties, however, empty out (or delete) the following values inside of the data-config.json file used to generate your component: properties-shared-tabs, properties-shared, properties-global-tabs, properties-global. Once this is complete, regenerate your component, which will remove any fields in your sling model attempting to be injected by @SharedValueMapValue.

Contributing

Originally developed and contributed by Bounteous.

Contributions are welcomed! Read the Contributing Guide for more information.

Licensing

This project is licensed under the Apache V2 License. See LICENSE for more information.