I am currently experimenting with Maven in Eclipse (m2e-Plugin) and tried to build and run the Hello World example project. However, when launching the generated jar, nothing happens. I checked the MANIFEST.MF and noticed that the Main-Class attribute was missing. After adding the attribute, the jar could be launched.
Why does Maven not add this attribute?
Have a look at this link:
https://maven.apache.org/shared/maven-archiver/examples/classpath.html#aAdd
You can find there how to configure your maven project to run specific class. You have to add maven-jar-plugin configuration with mainClass defined.
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
...
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
<mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
</manifest>
</archive>
</configuration>
...
</plugin>
</plugins>