Maven is one of the most powerful tools I've ever seen, and thus has a bunch of features embedded. If you are new to it, check out this reference:
https://maven.apache.org/guides/MavenQuickReferenceCard.pdf
The most important file in a Maven-based project is the pom.xml (POM stands for Project Object Model). For example, when you create a new Java EE 8 project, it should look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.eldermoraes</groupId>
<artifactId>javaee8-project-template</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<name>javaee8-project-template</name>
<properties>
<endorsed.dir>${project.build.directory}/endorsed</endorsed.dir>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax</groupId>
<artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
<version>8.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.1</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.8</source>
<target>1.8</target>
<compilerArguments>
<endorseddirs>${endorsed.dir}</endorseddirs>
</compilerArguments>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
<configuration>
<failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
Then your project is ready for building using Maven like this (running in the same folder where pom.xml is located):
mvn