[00:00] In this lesson, we'll discuss how to set up and configure the needed development environment for creating new modules with the Ignition SDK. In a prior lesson, we showed the overall SDK development workflow. We also stated that, before doing any development with the Ignition SDK, we needed to have a specific development environment set up. There are four prerequisite software installations to be done in order to develop SDK modules. These are the four items in lighter blue shown in this diagram. They are: a Java JDK and an IDE, such as IntelliJ, for developing SDK modules; Gradle, for building SDK modules; and Git, for obtaining working SDK examples from a GitHub repository. So here is the ordered installation sequence we'll discuss. Before getting rolling a few initial assumptions. For starters, we will assume that by this point you already have Ignition itself installed. If that's not the case, please refer to another IU video, which demonstrates Ignition installation. Next, make sure that you are performing all the following installs from an account which has admin privileges.

[01:14] Some of the steps may not work properly if that's not the case. And note that while this lesson and all the following ones will be Windows PC centric, the steps for other platforms should be pretty comparable. For each needed installation, we'll point you to where to find the install media and installation instructions. The needed vendor URLs are shown below this lesson. Look for some option to install or download each product. Since all of these are third-party applications, we'll lean on the vendor-maintained instructions, instead of showing detailed installation steps that could be subject to change. But rest assured that these are all fairly simple, straightforward installs. Then we'll call your attention to any relevant non-default settings. Then once you have an application installed, we'll show you how to quickly confirm its installation. Okay, let's get started on these installs. First, we need to ensure there is some Java development kit or JDK installed on our development system.

[02:13] This is at the foundation of developing new Ignition SDK modules as we see on the right. We're going to use the Azul OpenJDK Zulu build. In this lesson series, you might already have the Oracle JDK installed, that's okay too. In that case, you don't need to perform the following steps, you just need some Java JDK installed to do module development. Download the OpenJDK installer from the azul.com website. and that URL is given below. When downloading, be sure to specify the following parameters. For the Java version, specify the Java JDK that matches that of the current Ignition SDK. At the time of this recording, that is Java 11, but for the latest info, see the Javadoc archive cited in Lesson 1 or the SDK Programmer's Guide. Select the Java JDK package, then select the OS and architecture that's appropriate for your system.

[03:08] For example, mine would be Windows, x86, 64-bit, but yours may differ. Then, run the installer. Just follow the how to install instructions found on the website. Apart from that, you should just be able to accept all other defaults with one exception. In the custom setup dialogue shown below, be sure to select the option to set JAVA_HOME, which may be unselected by default. Just be aware that changing this could impact other programs which reference that same JAVA_HOME. Finally, after the installation is complete, spot check it by bringing up a command shell window and running the following commands: java -version to check that the JDK is present, and echo %JAVA_HOME% to make sure the environment variable got set. So let's try that out. java -version echo %JAVA_HOME%.

[04:07] Though this is Windows specific, you should see something comparable to this for your system, indicating that OpenJDK is in place. Next, we need to have some integrated development environment, or IDE, installed to do Ignition module development with our JDK, as we see on the right. We will use the IntelliJ IDE, and here the extra A just stands for application. Other IDEs such as Eclipse are fine too, but we'll work with IntelliJ for this lesson series. Download the IntelliJ installer from the jetbrains.com website, and that URL is given below. The Community Edition, which is a free non-licensed download, will be just fine for our purposes. Then run the installer. Just follow the installation instructions found on the website. You should just be able to accept most defaults with a couple exceptions. As shown in the Installation Options dialog, be sure to select the options to Open Folder as a Project, and to add bin to the PATH variable. Then, restart as needed to apply these changes.

[05:09] You may want to pause this lesson at this point to do that restart. We'll be here when you get back. Then after installing, to spot check your installation, simply run IntelliJ by whatever normal means. There is one useful setting you'll want to make though. That is to set IntelliJ to automatically add imports for any new Ignition SDK classes used, by selecting Add unambiguous imports on the fly, which you'll find by doing Ctrl-Alt-S to bring up the settings menu, then Editor > General > Auto Import is shown below. Okay, now our IntelliJ IDE should be installed and properly configured. Next, we'll need some build automation tool to build our IntelliJ Ignition SDK Java project, into an installable Ignition module, as we see on the right. In some of the other SDK examples available, you may also see the somewhat older Maven used as an alternate build tool, but we'll prefer to install and use Gradle instead.

[06:09] Gradle is what we use at Inductive Automation to build Ignition and its various modules. You can download the most recent Gradle distribution from gradle.org. That URL is given below. As far as the installation process goes, again, just follow the given installation instructions found on the website. The install process is pretty simple. It's more like unzipping the distribution into a desired location, then adding the path to the bin folder or directory to a PATH environment variable. Then to check your installation, bring up a command shell window and run the command gradle -v. Though this is Windows specific, you should see something comparable to this for your system, indicating that Gradle is in your path and ready to be used within IntelliJ. Finally, it'll be helpful to have a distributed version control system such as Git installed on our system. Git will typically play a minor role in this course, but as shown at lower right, it will be the mechanism by which we'll pull outside example repositories from GitHub onto our system for module development. Here, the dash lines imply this is only a one-time, as needed operation.

[07:25] You can download the most recent Git installer from git-scm.com, that URL is given below. As far as the installation process goes, once again, just follow the given install instructions on the website. You should be able to accept most defaults. And along the way, you may be asked to select a default editor of your choice. Then to check your installation, bring up a command shell window and run a command similar to this one: where git, to find Git in your search path. Though this is Windows specific, you should see something comparable to this for your system, indicating that Git is in your path and it's ready to be run from a command line. Okay, so summing up, at this point, in addition to our existing Ignition installation, we have now installed all four additional software applications needed for Ignition module development.

[08:20] And they'll be used together in our development workflow as follows: Git will be used to pull example code from a GitHub repository onto our system; Open JDK and IntelliJ will be used to develop Ignition SDK module code; and Gradle will be used within IntelliJ to build that code into .modl files, which can be installed and run on Ignition, which IS our ultimate objective in all of this. In the next lessons we'll show how to pull SDK example code and get it built into a module file that can get loaded and run in Ignition.