OpenWGA Developer Studio

This instruction describes the installation of a complete OpenWGA Developer Studio distribution.

1a) Installing on Windows

You must have a Java Runtime Environment (Version >= 6.0) installed to run the studio. If you have not yet installed a Java Runtime you can download the latest version from Oracle. Please ensure that you use a 32-Bit Java if your System type is 32-Bit and 64-Bit-Java if your System type is 64-Bit.

There are two developer studio download types you can use:

The simplest installation is provided by the Windows Installer. Use file "OpenWGADevStudio....win32.win32.x86.exe" if your System type is 32-Bit and "OpenWGADevStudio....win32.win32.x86_64.exe" if it is 64-Bit. After downloading just execute the downloaded exe file for a guided installation. The installation will go into folder "OpenWGADevStudio" of your user directory. Start menu links will automatically be created.

Alternatively you can also use the ZIP archives to extract the complete program to a location of your liking.  Use file "OpenWGADevStudio....win32.win32.x86.zip" if your System type is 32-Bit and "OpenWGADevStudio....win32.win32.x86_64.zip". Then extract the ZIP file to the location where you want to have the studio installed. Note the following advice:

    • Extract it to a folder where you have full access rights, including write access. This excludes the "Program FIles" folders of Windows 7 or higher. A good position would be your users directory, which is normally under "C:\Users\<yourusername>".
    • On some Windows versions the integrated ZIP extraction functionality (just clicking the file in explorer without some extra tool installed) does not work well with some ZIP files with deep directory nesting (like ours). It is better to use some third party ZIP tool for extraction like 7-Zip for example.

1b) Installing on Linux

You must have a Java Runtime Environment (Version >= 6.0) installed to run the studio. If possible use a Java runtime from the software repository of your Linux distribution instead of downloading any manually. For example, to install OpenJDK 7 on Ubuntu 12.04 or higher enter on  command line:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre


On Linux platforms the studio needs an installed XULRunner package of version 1.8 or 1.9. Please check the software repository of your Linux distribution for this package or get an appropriate download from the XULRunner homepage.

On Ubuntu the XULRunner package was part of the standard installation up until version 11.04, so no action required here. With version 11.10 it was removed. One of the following packages, depending on your OS architecture, can be installed as replacement:

Use download file "OpenWGADevStudio...linux.gtk.x86.tgz" if your System type is 32-Bit and "OpenWGADevStudio...linux.gtk.x86_64.tgz" if your System type is 64-Bit. Then extract the TGZ file to the location where you want to have the studio installed. Extract it to a folder where you have full access rights, including write access. 

You can do this via any desktop tool your distribution provides or via command line:

tar xzf OpenWGADeveloperStudio...tgz <target-location>


If the start of the studio fails you most likely have no suitable XULRunner installation. To start without this requirement just edit the file "OpenWGADevStudio.ini" from your installation directory with a text editor and add the following as last line:

-Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.DefaultType=mozilla

This will most likely break the "getting started" view from the studio but allows you to start it and work with it normally.

1c) Installing on a Mac

Use the download "OpenWGADevStudio...macosx.cocoa.x86_64.tgz" and move it to your "Applications" folder. Double-click it there to let the Mac unzip it. Now You have a Folder "OpenWGADevStudio" there where inside you will find the executable "OpenWGADevStudio".

Clicking it may reveal that you have no local Java runtime installation yet, which however is then offered to download.

2. Setup

To start the Developer Studio either click the start menu link on Windows or double click the executable which is named "OpenWGADevStudio" right in the installation folder.

During startup the OpenWGA Developer Studio ask for a location to store your projects. The default location will be <your user home>/wds-workspace:


OpenWGA Developer Studio then downloads the current OpenWGA CMS distribution for you new workspace. This download may take some minutes depending on your network connection:


On a fresh installation the "Getting Started Guide" will be displayed on the right. This will be a good point to start with: