I am thinking about creating a plugin to do a set of reports for Jira Software (Jira 7+ I believe and called Jira Agile before).
My understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that to develop a plugin for Jira it should be done using the java-api. And, if I was to develop external software then I should use the Jira Rest API.
The issue is I can not find any documentation for the Jira Software Java API (actually, I’m not that impressed with 6 and below either. Just a bunch of javadocs). There is a lot of information for the rest api’s.
So, is the documentation not there because Atlassian don’t want people to develop for Jira Server/Jira Data Center or should I be approaching this differently?
You should be able to find what you’re looking for on developer.atlassian.com and if you’re looking for Jira Server then specifically this page: Getting started
The learning curve for Server/DC development however can be quite steep. Unless you really want to spend the time required to get into this, and depending on the complexity of your requirements, it might make sense for you to look for an existing app on the Atlassian Marketplace or to find an Atlassian Solution Partner through the Atlassian Partner Directory that can help you.
Thanks for the reply. I am familiar with the documentation you recommended but what I am really looking for is decent documentation to the Java.api.
Ive heard quite a few people say that there is a steep learning curve but personally I think that’s a bit misdirected. To me a steep learning curve means the concepts are difficult to understand. The concepts here are nothing new and not particularly difficult.
To me it feels as though Atlassian would prefer developers to put there efforts into Cloud development by intentionally not providing or keeping server developer documentation up to date. If this is the case then how about some transparency and say that.
@FinniusFrog I’ve been doing server development for 9 years now. And over the course of those 9 years, the best damn advise I was always given was to download the Jira source code if I needed any direction or documentation.
The documentation has always been a mess. Even before Atlassian realised there was such a thing as the Cloud. Also, Atlassian has never been unclear about her push to the cloud.
So please forgive me, but I wholeheartedly disagree that Atlassian app development is not difficult, nor that there is no steep learning curve involved. As soon as you start scratching beneath the surface you will learn that Atlassian has created one hell of a can of worms to navigate.
Maybe your app is simple, maybe you can get away with what is on the surface. If that’s the case, be happy about it. But if you start going deeper into ActiveObjects (with support for 4 database engines), OSGi, WebActions, Spring Scanner Spring config, caching, scheduling, persistent file storage, the whole damn labyrinth of services, managers, factories and everything in between, maybe you’ll remember the day someone told you that the Jira source code will be your best bet at trying to find out how the hell you can achieve your goals.
Fair enough comments but there is no way you can deny that it is not hampered by lack of documentation. And if there is no adequate documentation then fair enough, I’ll skip the server version and work on a cloud version first.
