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Using the annotations processor with IntelliJ and Maven

The above configuration is usually enough for IntelliJ to pick up what it needs to support annotation processing. But if you have trouble with the processor not being found or classes not being generated you can try to add the processor as a dependency to the projects that need it. This ensures that the processor is on the classpath when IntelliJ needs it. You should also check IntelliJ's annotation processor settings which can be found at:

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With this configuration every build should rebuild any annotated classes where needed.

How to generate properties for classes

The annotation processor will by default generate typeful properties for all classes that:

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For any class annotated like this the processor will generate a set of classes that are used to make typeful properties and typeful property paths. All classes are generated in the special location where annotation processors generate code; when using Maven this is usually target/annotations/xxxx, where xxxx represents the same package that the original class has. So for a class to.etc.domui.derbydata.db.Artist the processor will generate the class to.etc.domui.derbydata.db.Artist_ as the class holding the property references for the Artist class. This class-with-underscore is the only class that is directly used. There are more classes generated but these are used to be able to properly link classes and properties for paths.

What is generated

For each class that is annotated the generator will first detect all properties. It then depends on the type of the property whether it is generated:

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To prevent a property from being generated you can add the @IgnoreGeneration annotation to its getter method. Do not add it to the field: modelwise properties have no fields, so adding things there is an abomination and causes yet another heap of horrible problems.

Using typeful properties in code

You should generate typed properties for all classes that have properties that are used in your code with either QCriteria queries or DomUI data binding. This means that at least the following classes should be generated:

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