Developing a simple add-on

Roo provides an add-on creator add-on which simplifies developing custom add-ons. You can either create a simple or an advanced add-on using the commands exposed by the add-on creator.

A simple add-on is meant to add project dependencies in the pom.xml file or to add configuration artifacts to the project. For instance, in Chapter 4, Web Application Development with Spring Web MVC we saw that Roo installs JSP custom tags when scaffolding a Spring Web MVC application. Instead of using Roo-installed JSP custom tags, you can create a simple Roo add-on which replaces Roo-installed JSP custom tags with the tags that you have tailored based on your application requirements.

An advanced add-on, on the other hand, is required in scenarios in which you want to create new Java classes, interfaces, and AspectJ ITD files. For instance, a Portlet add-on will scaffold controllers and JSPs from JPA entities.

In this recipe, we'll look at the addon create simple command, which creates...