Apache ANT Standalone GUI for easy execution of targets

Question

Does anyone know of a GUI written for Apache ANT. We're looking into developing a GUI to execute some of our developer tools for some of the designers and artists on our team.

I found a couple on the Ant External website but most of them are used for creating ANT files not simply listing the public targets available.

http://ant.apache.org/external.html

Answer 1

The ANT forms project has some tasks that enable you to generate simple forms that can be used to invoke ANT targets.

Here's an example with three buttons:

<project default="menu">

    <property environment="env"/>

    <path id="runtime.cp">
        <pathelement location="${env.ANTFORM_HOME}/lib/antform.jar"/>
    </path>

    <target name="menu">        
        <taskdef name="antmenu" classname="com.sardak.antform.AntMenu" classpathref="runtime.cp"/>

        <antmenu image="${env.ANTFORM_HOME}/doc/images/logo-small.jpg" title="My simple form" stylesheet="${env.ANTFORM_HOME}/style.test">
            <label>A short label with a few explanatory words concerning the menu at hand.</label>
            <button label="Echo 1 target" target="echo1"/>
            <button label="Echo 2 target" target="echo2"/>
            <button label="Echo 3 target" target="echo3"/>            
        </antmenu>
    </target>

    <target name="echo1">
        <echo>DO SOMETHING</echo>
    </target>

    <target name="echo2">
        <echo>DO SOMETHING</echo>
    </target>

    <target name="echo3">
        <echo>DO SOMETHING</echo>
    </target>

</project>

Answer 2

Usually most of the GUI for Ant or Maven are part of the IDE. I use IntelliJ that has an excellent support for Ant and Maven. Lists all my goals and I easily view any of them.