Chapter 2: Setup Ritual - Raise the temple

"Speak the Maven incantation first, and the foundation shall appear." - Wicket Scripture

Requirements

Tool	Version	Notes
JDK	17+	21 LTS recommended
Maven	3.8+	3.9.x preferred
IDE	Any modern Java IDE	Eclipse or IntelliJ

Check JDK and Maven

Verify versions

java -version
mvn -version

Make sure Maven is using JDK 17 or newer through JAVA_HOME.

Create Project

Generate Wicket quickstart

mvn archetype:generate \
  -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.wicket \
  -DarchetypeArtifactId=wicket-archetype-quickstart \
  -DarchetypeVersion=10.8.0 \
  -DgroupId=com.example \
  -DartifactId=mywicketapp \
  -DinteractiveMode=false

Run with Jetty

Start development server

cd mywicketapp
mvn jetty:run

Verify

Open http://localhost:8080. If the start page renders, your temple stands. If not, inspect dependency resolution, servlet namespace imports, and Java version alignment.

Wicket 10 is Jakarta-based. Use jakarta.servlet, not javax.servlet.

Practical Pitfalls

Problem
You edit HTML, but the rendered page still looks unchanged. During UI tweaks this feels like your changes are being ignored.

Cause
The app is running in deployment-style behavior where template change detection is limited, so updated markup is not reloaded immediately.

Solution
Use development mode while building, then re-deploy or clear browser cache when needed to confirm whether the issue is code or cache.