</title>
<body>
<h1>
-Adding Groovy Support to Jalview
+Groovy Support in Jalview
</h1>
<p>
-There is currently no scripting language
-extension within Jalview, in part because a
-scripting API has not yet been developed.
-</p>
-<p>It is, however, really easy to embed scripting
-engines like groovy. If groovy is detected on the
-classpath, a new menu entry on the Desktop's Tools
-menu will open the GroovyShell.
+ <a href="http://www.groovy-lang.org">Groovy</a> has been bundled with the Jalview desktop since circa 2012. The program supports interactive execution of groovy scripts via the Groovy Console, and command line execution via the '-groovy' option. The main source for documentation about Groovy in Jalview is the <a href="http://www.jalview.org/help/html/features/groovy.html">online help pages</a>.
</p>
<p>Here are some scripts to get you started:</p>
<ul><li>Getting the title, alignment and first sequence from the current alignFrame<br>
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
-<h1>Getting Groovy...</h1>
-<p>
-You need the core groovy jars which include the GroovyShell. The easiest way of doing
-this is to add the groovy-all-*.jar to the lib directory whose path is given in the java.ext.dirs property.</p>
-<p>The is obtained from the <em>embedded</em> directory within the <a
-href="http://dist.codehaus.org/groovy/distributions"/>groovy distribution</a>).
-</p>
<h2>TODO</h2>
<p>
Using Java class methods from Groovy is straightforward, but currently, there isn't a set of easy to use methods for the jalview objects. A Jalview Scripting API needs to be developed to make this easier.</p>
<strong>The Groovy Shell</strong>
</p>
<p>
- <a href="http://groovy.codehaus.org/">Groovy</a> is an "<em>agile
+ <a href="http://www.groovy-lang.org/">Groovy</a> is an "<em>agile
and dynamic language for the Java platform</em>". The groovy
scripting language makes it extremely easy to programmatically
interact with Java programs, in much the same way that Javascript is
page.
</p>
<p>
- <strong><em>Getting Groovy...</em> </strong><br> Jalview Groovy
- support is only possible if the core groovy jars which include the
- GroovyShell are present on the CLASSPATH when Jalview is started.
- </p>
- <p>
- The jars are obtained from the <em>embedded</em> directory within
- the <a href="http://dist.codehaus.org/groovy/distributions">groovy
- distribution</a>. The easiest way of adding them to the Jalview
- classpath is to download and build Jalview from its source
- distribution, and then add the groovy-all-*.jar to the lib directory
- whose path is given in the java.ext.dirs property.
- </p>
- <p>
- <strong>Opening Jalview's Groovy Console</strong><br>If groovy
- is available, then the <strong>Tools→Groovy
- Console...</strong> menu entry will be available from the Jalview Desktop's
- drop-down menu. Selecting this will open the <a
- href="http://groovy.codehaus.org/Groovy+Console"
- >Groovy Console</a> which allows you to interactively execute Groovy
+ <strong><em>Getting Groovy...</em> </strong><br> Jalview comes with
+ an embedded installation of Groovy. All you need is to select <strong>Tools→Groovy
+ Console...</strong> menu option from the Jalview Desktop's
+ drop-down menu. After a short pause, you should then see the <a
+ href="http://groovy-lang.org/groovyconsole.html"
+ >Groovy Console</a> appear. This allows you to interactively execute Groovy
scripts within the Jalview run-time environment.
</p>
<p>