JSPWeaver interprets the JSP markup on-the-fly instead of producing and compiling Java code. This reduces JSP reload times in development from tens of seconds to milliseconds.

The final release incorporates performance and stability improvements. JSPWeaver now supports the full JSP standard including common syntax, XML syntax and Java scriplets and is completely container-agnostic.

Installing JSPWeaver is as easy as dropping a JAR into WEB-INF/lib and registering the servlet in web.xml. Download it from ZeroTurnaround and give it a try.

Disclaimer: JSPWeaver is commercial software with a free trial for 21 days and developer seat cost at 49$.

IDEs can be cranky when it comes to debugging applications that use JavaRebel. To fix this issue with IntelliJ IDEA we have a released a plugin. The plugin can be downloaded or updated straight from your IDEA installation. The current version requires at least IDEA build 7364.

This plugin uses a different approach to adding breakpoints and is tested to work with JavaRebel enabled and disabled projects. In some cases IDEA adds an exclamation mark to the breakpoint indicator, the breakpoint still gets set.

The plugin is licensed under Apache License v. 2 and is bundled with source code. If any of the community readers use IDEA, please give the new version a go and let us know how it went.

If you don’t know how to setup IDEA and JavaRebel read the JavaRebel and IntelliJ IDEA tips.

Note the plugin is an effort started by Pieter Degraeuwe to enable support for debugging JavaRebel enabled applications under IntelliJ IDEA.

Update: the Eclipse support has made it to the final 1.0 release of JavaRebel and development snapshots are not needed to use JavaRebel for Eclipse plugin development.

JavaRebel’s latest development snapshot includes support for the Eclipse Platform. The speedup that we can see with JEE servers when using JavaRebel applies also to other containers. In this case it is Eclipse. Developers can launch their plugins and as they change the source code they can see the results without restarting the new Eclipse instance.

We’ve prepared a small screencast (~5 min) that shows JavaRebel in action speeding up Eclipse plugin development.

Configuring JavaRebel for Eclipse is as easy as adding VM arguments -noverify and -javaagent:path/to/javarebel.jar and launch as usual as a Eclipse Application Configuration.

Usually JSP is first translated to regular Java code and then compiled into a Java servlet. JSP Weaver eliminates the Java generation and compilation stage by interpreting the JSP files on-the-fly. This reduces the time taken to reload a JSP up to 50 times bringing it from seconds down to milliseconds.

We have launched the next milestone of the JSP interpreter JSP Weaver. This release brings you the long awaited JSP standard syntax support and includes several fixes. All the known limitations have been addressed we are getting ready to release the final version. Now JSP Weaver supports full JSP specification from 1.0 to 2.1. However we do not support Java 5 language changes like generics and enums in scriptlets at the moment.

Eclipse IDE was used in the JavaRebel installation and demo screencast. We have got requests on how to integrate JavaRebel with IntelliJ IDEA. Of course JavaRebel is IDE independent and it all comes down to the users choice. In this quick tutorial we will outline the settings that you should enable to take the most out of JavaRebel & Intellij IDEA.We will be using the latest stable version 6.0.6.

Currently it is not possible to debug applications from IntelliJ Idea that are using JavaRebel. The issue has been reported to JetBrains.. To debug applications running under JavaRebel using IntelliJ IDEA use the special plugin. It can be downloaded from the IntelliJ Plugin page or from the IntelliJ IDEA plugin manager.

Use the following tips increase your productivity.

• Develop in exploded mode
  • Make sure that you don’t package modules as war/jar files
  • Set the output directory to the respected WEB-INF/classes
  • This is done via Module Settings -> Output and JavaDoc -> Output path
• Turn off application deployment
  • Settings -> Project Settings -> Compiler -> Deploy web applications to server after compilation
• Ease the compilation process
  • IDEA saves files when you compile them.
  • Make sure all dependent files are also compiled.
    • Settings -> Project Setting -> Compiler -> Honor dependencies on “Compile” command
  • Start using the default compile shortcut Ctrl-Shift-f9 or map it to ctrl-s.

Opening Module Settings

Setting Output Paths

Compiler Settings

Although JavaRebel is a commercial product we do support the open source movement by providing free licenses of JavaRebel to qualified Open-Source projects (as you may know we’re developing the open source Aranea Web Application Platform ourselves).

To request a personal OSS license please e-mail support@zeroturnaround.com with the following information

• Project name
• Developer name and e-mail
• Proof of association (link to a page or mailing list associating the developer with the project). This is not needed if the e-mail belongs to the project.

To request a committer license for all project committers a project leader or representative should contact us.

JSP Weaver 1.0 M1 has been released, the first public release. With this release we are also launching http://www.jspweaver.com to start the licensing and evaluation of the product. Currently we will be supporting payments through http://www.moneybookers.com that supports all the major credit cards and domestic transfers in 30 countries.

Although we will provide full support of JSP standard in the final release, the first milestone does not yet include support for the non-XML old style JSP syntax and provides limited support for scriptlets. If you are using XML syntax for your JSPs have a go at it and be amazed by the speedup.