Maven Jar requires two execution contexts

Question

I need to be able to allow my maven package to be executed in two contexts.

1. User needs to execute jar from the command line to generate a licence key from an AWT dialog that appears when the user executes java -jar myjar.jar

2. myjar needs to also download all its transitive dependencies (in the "normal" maven way) when a client project references myjar as a dependency.

Scenario 1 requires the AWT forms jar to be packaged so that the AWT dialog pops up.
Scenario 2 requires all the other dependencies to be downloaded as the client project builds.

How do I package this to keep it as small as possible?

I've tried the jar-plugin, the shade-plugin and the assembly-plugin independently without much luck.

JAR-PLUGIN:
Placing the forms-1.2.1.jar in the lib/ directory and adding it to the classpath doesn't work because java -jar myjar.jar will not load it at the commandline

SHADE-PLUGIN:
Downloads the internet. How to exclude some dependencies?

ASSEMBLY-PLUGIN:
Downloads the internet. How to exclude some dependencies?

Is there a way to package the transitive dependencies of forms-1.2.1.jar (for scenario 1) but exclude all other dependencies at packaging time so they are downloaded at client project build time (for scenario 2).

Can the jar-plugin or assembly-plugin do this?

Answer 1

What you think about the following:

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    [...]
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <!-- NOTE: We don't need a groupId specification because the group is
             org.apache.maven.plugins ...which is assumed by default.
         -->
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.5.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <descriptorRefs>
            <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
          </descriptorRefs>
        </configuration>
        [...]
</project>

That will produce a jar file which contains all dependencies and make it possible to call it from command line, but to get it working correctly you need a supplemental part:

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    [...]
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.5.2</version>
        <configuration>
          [...]
          <archive>
            <manifest>
              <mainClass>org.sample.App</mainClass>
            </manifest>
          </archive>
        </configuration>
        [...]
      </plugin>
      [...]
</project>