GSOC 2025: Replacing OpenMRS Standalone with a Modern, User-Friendly Alternative - Updates and Discussion

jonathan · July 3, 2025, 9:18am

Just seen here

As a result of this work, we should have a standalone distribution for OpenMRS 2.x (latest snapshot), OpenMRS 3.x, and the OpenMRS Core Platform (2.7.x and 2.8.x).

this confirms that the standalone is expected to run 2.x for the latest snapshot 2.14.0-SNAPSHOT which supports java 17 if not mistaken

cc @dkayiwa @wikumc

mherman22 · July 3, 2025, 9:25am

yes, 2.14.0-SNAPSHOT is running on openmrs-distro-referenceapplication/pom.xml at 73af5bec8d3af6436dc723898a4eace8140b8f8d · openmrs/openmrs-distro-referenceapplication · GitHub which supports 17 as seen at openmrs-core/pom.xml at 00f89f70d5ff3f2ca48429de3545c5b9f3bee4a3 · openmrs/openmrs-core · GitHub

jonathan · July 3, 2025, 9:28am

makes sense @mherman22 let me build it and see how it goes gonna update here in a few

jonathan · July 3, 2025, 9:34am

@mherman22 have u ever experienced this before INFO - StorageServiceCondition.matches(38) |2025-07-03T12:31:31,663| Selected st - Pastebin.com

Am getting this error via standalone though working fine on sdk

for more context this is my openmrs-runtime.properties

#Last updated by the OpenMRS Standalone application.
#Thu Jul 03 12:31:21 EAT 2025
module.allow_web_admin=true
vm_arguments=-Xmx512m -Xms512m -XX:NewSize=128m --add-exports=java.desktop/com.apple.eawt=ALL-UNNAMED
connection.password=dDaJ80MlV4kZ
application_data_directory=appdata
connection.database.data_dir=./database/data
connection.username=openmrs
connection.url=jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1:3316/openmrs?autoReconnect=true&useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8&zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull
auto_update_database=false
tomcatport=8081

cc @dkayiwa @wikumc

dkayiwa · July 3, 2025, 9:54am

Hard to tell without a server side log.

jonathan · July 3, 2025, 9:56am

full log can be found here Attempting to load properties file in current directory: openmrs-runtime.propert - Pastebin.com

mherman22 · July 3, 2025, 10:06am

I think spring is expecting a property named OPENMRS_APPLICATION_DATA_DIRECTORY, but it’s not set. You must make sure OPENMRS_APPLICATION_DATA_DIRECTORY is available to Spring before the context is initialized. You cannot rely on openmrs-runtime.properties to define that value, because it’s used to locate that file.

This bean openmrs-core/api/src/main/resources/applicationContext-service.xml at 00f89f70d5ff3f2ca48429de3545c5b9f3bee4a3 · openmrs/openmrs-core · GitHub is the culprit

ibacher · July 3, 2025, 12:53pm

This should not be a requirement and this looks like someone made a broken assumption in core. More specifically, OPENMRS_APPLICATION_DATA_DIRECTORY has always been an optional system property that could be used to provide a default, but is not required. If the Spring configuration is now requiring that be set, that’s a breaking change and needs to be undone.

Two notes I’ll make here:

We currently have two PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer beans defined in applicationContext-service.xml that reference this value and seem to just duplicate one another.
Rather than relying on the property being set, we should be able to create the PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer programmatically, so that instead of relying on the property, we can call the usual OpenmrsUtil.getApplicationDataDirectory() call.

dkayiwa · July 3, 2025, 2:02pm

@mherman22 do you think you can look into this?

mherman22 · July 3, 2025, 2:08pm

Yes, looking into it right now. Here is the JIRA ticket to track it Jira

jonathan · July 3, 2025, 5:39pm

thank u @mherman22 tracing PR here -

github.com/openmrs/openmrs-core

TRUNK-6367: Remove duplicate PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer bean

master ← mherman22:TRUNK-6367

opened 02:37PM - 03 Jul 25 UTC

mherman22

+0 -11

## Description of what I changed This commit removes the duplicate bean to …simplify configuration and prevent unintended side effects, especially as we move toward defining this bean programmatically. ## Issue I worked on see https://issues.openmrs.org/browse/TRUNK-6367 ## Checklist: I completed these to help reviewers :) - [x] My IDE is configured to follow the [**code style**](https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/docs/Java+Conventions) of this project. No? Unsure? -> [configure your IDE](https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/docs/How-To+Setup+And+Use+Your+IDE), format the code and add the changes with `git add . && git commit --amend` - [x] I have **added tests** to cover my changes. (If you refactored existing code that was well tested you do not have to add tests) No? -> write tests and add them to this commit `git add . && git commit --amend` - [x] I ran `mvn clean package` right before creating this pull request and added all formatting changes to my commit. No? -> execute above command - [x] All new and existing **tests passed**. No? -> figure out why and add the fix to your commit. It is your responsibility to make sure your code works. - [x] My pull request is **based on the latest changes** of the master branch. No? Unsure? -> execute command `git pull --rebase upstream master`

cc @dkayiwa @ibacher @wikumc

mherman22 · July 3, 2025, 6:48pm

Hey @jonathan , i have made the changes to fix the issue you reported earlier by making sure spring doesn’t prematurely require OPENMRS_APPLICATION_DATA_DIRECTORY. I have tested this with the sdk, i now want to test with the standalone before pushing in a pullrequest.

Guide me on how to test that with the standalone.

jonathan · July 3, 2025, 7:59pm

pull the changes on this draft PR STAND-116: Replace the embedded mysql with mariadb4j in Ref App 2.x by Muta-Jonathan · Pull Request #74 · openmrs/openmrs-standalone · GitHub and run

mvn clean
mvn install or mvn package
then copy the referenceapplication-standalone-2.14.0-SNAPSHOT.zip from the target folder and unzip
then run java -jar openmrs-standalone.jar inside the directory

NOTE: this so far works on mac and linux … not on windows

dkayiwa · July 3, 2025, 9:00pm

@jonathan can you pull @mherman22’s changes, compile them and test again?

jonathan · July 4, 2025, 1:00am

@dkayiwa with these new changes am able to announce that the 2.x ref App on 2.8.0-SNAPSHOT is able to run fine thanks to @mherman22 and @ibacher

Login page

Home Page

Just for confirmation here is the system info

cc @dkayiwa @mherman22 @wikumc

akanter · July 4, 2025, 1:37pm

Just confirming which concept dictionary you are planning with the standalone and to make sure we have a path to overwrite with an OCL export which includes CIEL/custom concepts managed on OCL online