Jason van Zyl Pete Kazmier

Getting Started with Maven

This document (as well as the others in this section) provide an introduction to Maven and how to use it within a project. For those that have already skimmed the documentation on this site, you may be asking yourself, what *exactly* does it mean to use Maven? That question will have different answers over time as Maven evolves, but these documents attempt to illustrate (using the Turbine projects as an example) how one might install, integrate and leverage the power of Maven in a project.

To avoid overwhelming you (user, developer, or contributor) with unnecessary information, this document attempts to provide references to various documents depending upon your Maven interests. It is meant to provide you with a starting point that can be effectively used to get to the information you need without going through all of the documentation on the site, which might be a little overwhelming.

Overview of the Getting Started Documentation

DocumentDescription
Download Before you can start using Maven in any form, you'll have to download the Maven distribution to your system (unless you plan on building Maven from source). This document provides links to the various distributions available.
Install After you have downloaded a distribution, you'll need to install this on your system before you can start using Maven (unless you plan on building Maven from source). This document provides step-by-step instructions on the installation process.
Integrate If you are interested in integrating Maven with your project, this document will provide such information. The document details the process of creating a Maven project descriptor for your project. This document provides example build files and project descriptors.
Use For those of you that have been referred to this document because you are trying to build a Maven-enabled project (i.e. one of the Turbine projects), this document will provide you with all of the necessary information required to build any Maven-enabled project.
Build For the adventurous (its actually quite easy), you can build Maven from source instead of downloading and installing via an installer. As a result of building Maven directly, it will also be installed on your system. This document provides you with step by step instructions.
Anakia Users If you currently use Anakia to generate documentation, you can easily give your site a face-lift with Maven! Maven can generate an entire site from your Anakia documentation for you! This is a great opportunity to start integrating Maven into your project.