Modify the plugin using QuickReload

So far you've discovered that you can create a plugin for JIRA and you can make changes to that plugin, however starting and stopping JIRA can take several minutes each time.  QuickReload significantly reduces your plugin development iteration time by watching output directories for P2 JAR files and then uploads them into the running host application.  

Step 1. Check QuickReload is enabled in your pom

1. Open the pom.xml in your favourite text editor.

2. Search for the <build> tags, you should see something similar to this:

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   <build>
       <plugins>
           <plugin>
               <groupId>com.atlassian.maven.plugins</groupId>
               <artifactId>maven-jira-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>${amps.version}</version>
               <extensions>true</extensions>
               <configuration>
                   <productVersion>${jira.version}</productVersion>
                   <productDataVersion>${jira.version}</productDataVersion>
   
                   <enableQuickReload>true</enableQuickReload>
                   <enableFastdev>false</enableFastdev>
                   ...

   Confirm that <enableQuickReload> is set to true and <enableFastdev> is set to false.  If not, update the pom to match the example above and then save your changes. 

3. Open a Command Prompt window, and navigate to yourmyPlugin directory.  

4. Enter the atlas-run command and wait for JIRA to start up.
5. Login to JIRA and confirm that you can see the myItem menu which does not have a drop down menu when clicked.

Step 2. Make a change to your plugin while JIRA is running

1. Open a second Command Prompt window and navigate to yourmyPlugin directory.

2. Enter theatlas-create-jira-plugin-module command and answer the prompts as follows:

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   Choose a number (1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30/31/32
   /33/34):25
   Enter Plugin Module Name My Web Item: : Atlassian Developers Site
   Enter Section (e.g. system.admin/globalsettings): my-item-link/my-section
   Enter Link URL (e.g. /secure/CreateIssue!default.jspa): http://developer.atlassian.com/docs
   Show Advanced Setup? (Y/y/N/n) N: : N

3. Enter N when prompted to create another module.

4. Run the command:

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   atlas-mvn package

   and wait for your plugin package to build, when it's finished you'll see:

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   [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   [INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
   [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   [INFO] Total time: 9.084 s
   [INFO] Finished at: 2016-08-22T17:09:56+10:00
   [INFO] Final Memory: 32M/321M
   [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Return to the first command prompt window (the one you started JIRA in earlier using the atlas-run command), you'll notice there are some log entries appearing. When the plugin has finished loading you'll see:

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   [INFO] [talledLocalContainer]     Quick Reload Finished (1727 ms) - 'myPlugin-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar'

6. Reload localhost:2990/jira in your browser window, and you'll see that your menu is now showing the changes you just made:
   

Need Help?

 The source code for this tutorial is available on Bitbucket at bitbucket.org/serverecosystem/myplugin

Alternatively, check out the Getting Started Tutorial FAQ

Still need help? Request support at Developer Technical Support Portal

Next step

If you'd like to keep learning about add-on development you may want to try out the Confluence tutorial below:

Here are some other things you might like to do next:

• Check out the Learn the Development Platform by Example Tutorial to learn about developing plugins for any Atlassian application.  
• Tackle another one of our Atlassian Developer Tutorials.

Additional resources

The following resources will allow you to learn more about some of the tasks we covered in this tutorial:

• Working with the POM
• Plugin Modules
• Writing and Running Plugin Tests