Add project description as a mojo parameter

I would find it more flexible to be able to accept any arbitrary command line parameter and automatically include that into the velocity map. So the archetype plugin would have its required and optional parameters, but you could also include other -D options on the command line with the archetype:create command, such as -Ddescription=<desc> and -DprojectName=<projectName>.

In short, I want to be able to create a fully templated prototype pom.xml with no modifications to the archetype plugin.

This would keep the archetype plugin cleaner without having to fork it locally (or patch and release a new official version) for each develope that adds an additional parameter requirement.

If this sounds reasonable, I can take a stab at contributing this solution. Any showstoppers that I would need to be aware of.

Jeff

The future archetypeNG version will solve this issue by letting the archetype developper define a list of properties (with default values)

What about the fix for the current version?

The patch provided is very simple and causes no problems if a project description parameter is not provided.

If it would help get this fix committed, I might also be able to contribute a simple unit test, patches to documentation, etc.

In the mailing list, Jeff Black wrote that "If there is interest in this functionality, let me know at the filed issue". So hereby I am letting you know that there is interest. : )

Cheers,
Viktor Nordling

Today I was trying to create my first archetype and was very surprised when I realized that using arbitrary parameters didn't work. I would say that this is almost a must for any not very simple archetype.

Ernesto

These issues are addressed since the 2.0-alpha-n version of the plugin

I am re-opening this issue because I still cannot see how to accomplish this, with version 2.0-alpha-3. How about some documentation about how this was addressed?

Specifically,

1) How do you define a parameter in an archetype project that must be made accessible to Velocity templates in the archetype?

2) How do you specify a value for the new parameter when running mvn archetype:create/generate?

IIRC, one can find this information in the documentation http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-archetype-plugin

So first one can create an archetype by:

• creating a sample project which that will turned into an archetype
• call mvn archetype:create-from-project in the directory (with -Darchetype.properties=... with a property file contains the key=value pairs of properties or with -Dinteractive=true to enable the question mode)
• go to the target/generated-sources/archetype directory
• call mvn install

Then use that archetype by:

• going to a fresh directory (without a pom.xml)
• call mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=local
• the values are asked by the plugin (but first defaulted to the initial values)

Also, this feature is not available to archetype:create (whith is here only for backward compatibility with old (without additional property) archetypes)