Michael Bien's Weblog

NetBeans OpenGL Pack 0.5.1 released

The NetBeans OpenGL Pack 0.5.1 has been released. This is a small bugfix release with no major features added.

Changes since last release:

• updated JOGL distribution to v1.1.1rc8
• updated JOGL demos (added gears Applet demo)
• added JOGL API support module for doc and source integration
  
• webstart support for JOGL project templates (just enable it in the project properties)
• improved JOGL deployment code (fixed some issues on 64bit systems)
• bug fixes

To download the pack please visit the plugin portal page.

The OpenGL pack will be soon available via plugin portal update center (Tools | Plugins). This will make our old  "NetBeans OpenGL Pack update center" obsolete (and improve the download speed!). However, we will use the old update center for experimental not final releases in future.

As always, please use the user mailing list for feedback and the issue tracker for bug reports on the project page.

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Write once run everywhere [1][2][3][4][5][6] - seems like the platform agnostic JOGL deployment is working ;)

Posted at 03:31PM Apr 12, 2008 by mbien in NetBeans OpenGL Pack  |  Kommentare[0]

How to reuse modules across different NetBeans applications

If you develop NetBeans modules you probably also wondered how to add a pre-packaged .nbm file as dependency to your module or how to use modules in multiple suites.

After some search I found that there is currently no official supported way for doing this. The reason is the bidirectional dependency between the suite and each module in the suite. This makes it hard to reuse modules across suites but it is still possible. In this entry I will describe different techniques/hacks to workaround this issue. (Note: technique, hack and workaround in the same sentence ;) )

In general, you can add a dependency to a module when the module you like to depend on is in:

a) your suite

b) the target NetBeans platform (default target platform is the installed IDE)

As mentioned above a) works only for one suite -> only b) is left

option 1. Assemble your own target platform:

point and click

• Either make a copy of NetBeans, or if there's a lot of stuff you don't want, create an empty suite. Then build it and create a zip distribution and unpack that
• Launch the result
• In Tools | Plugins, install the module(s) you want globally (check the "Force install into shared directories" checkbox)
  
• Shut it down
  
• In your real IDE, use Tools | NetBeans Platforms to point at the copy of the platform that now has the module you want in it
  
• Set your suite to build against that. It should pick up the module you installed and all classes in it's public packages
  

or put it in a build script

option 2. Install the module into your IDE:

point and click

• enable "Force install into shared directories" in Tools | Plugins | Settings
• install your module(s)
• restart NetBeans
  
• your module is now in the extra cluster and part of your IDE
  

or declarative

edit Info/index.xml inside your .nbm file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE module PUBLIC "-//NetBeans//DTD Autoupdate Module Info 2.5//EN" "http://www.netbeans.org/dtds/autoupdate-info-2_5.dtd">
<module codenamebase="org.yourorghere.module4" distribution="" downloadsize="0" global="true" homepage="" license="AD9FBBC9" moduleauthor="Michael Bien" needsrestart="false" releasedate="2008/04/07" targetcluster="milkyway">
    <manifest AutoUpdate-Show-In-Client="true" OpenIDE-Module="org.yourorghere.module4" OpenIDE-Module-Implementation-Version="080407" OpenIDE-Module-Java-Dependencies="Java &gt; 1.5" OpenIDE-Module-Name="module4" OpenIDE-Module-Requires="org.openide.modules.ModuleFormat1" OpenIDE-Module-Specification-Version="1.1"/>
    <license name="AD9FBBC9">[NO LICENSE SPECIFIED]
</license>
</module>

alternatively you can add the flags to module/nbproject/project.properties and rebuild/create NBM (if source available)

nbm.is.global=true
nbm.target.cluster=milkyway

Now when you install the module with Tools | Plugins, NetBeans will place the module directly into the installation folder in the new created "milkyway" cluster. With this trick you should be able to use the same library wrapper module in as many suites you want.

Thanks to all on the mailing lists for the help on that topic.

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I am already looking forward to JSR 277 which will hopefully replace the current implementation of the NetBeans module system. (no there was nothing anounced but this would make defenetive sense)

Posted at 02:34PM Apr 07, 2008 by mbien in NetBeans  |  Kommentare[6]

NetBeans 7.0 with better desktop integration planed

You probably already know a lot of changes are planed for the NetBeans 7.0 release.

One of the bigger changes is tighter integration to the Windows Presentation Foundation for the SWT/JFace rewrite of NetBeans 7.0 similar tho the Eclipse roadmap. The minimum system requirement will rise to windows vista ultimate with a DirectX 10 capable graphics card and a USB stick plugged into your system (swap file for java quickstarter) to render NetBeans 7 in full HD. The primary reason for that was the out of the box Java 6 incompatibility to apple systems (who knows maybe it is compatible with MacOS X but no one will tell you because if he tried installing SE 6 on macs he/she also signed an NDA...) and the issue that many architects simple do not understand the internals of linux distributions (e.g Ubuntu) to install NetBeans.

On older cards or other operating systems JEdit will be started in compatibility mode (motif look&feel and full shell support).

The reason for that are the new consumer guidelines and download size limitations of the java 6 Update 10 release. (there is a because of backwards compatibility problems [to build 11] not fixable ArrayIndexOutOfBounds bug in the pack200 implementation - primary reason why the swing renderer does not fit into the NB 7 distribution anymore if started with Java 6 update 10).

This brings several advantages. E.g instead of playing Jake in the browser (update 10 required) NetBeans 7.0 will be capable to render Halo 3 in the editor pane (with full profiler integration and 16x FSAA text overlay). Regular patches will be available via update center.
 
Additionally to that better joystick support is planed. This should improve the navigation through larger projects and replace the "go to declaration" action. You may also activate the force feedback option in the new "user experience" tab in the options dialog to detect the files which causes unit tests to fail. (Note: not available in JEdit compatibility mode but there will be a blinking icon instead)

The higher costs to develop NetBeans 7.0 make a complete free distribution not feasible but it will be still free for opensource developers (but not without limitations e.g UML diagrams will be limited to only two kind of widgets "hack" and "ship" while maintaining 100% SSP compatibility).

Note: This entry has been posted on 1. April and nothing of that above is true :-)

Posted at 11:42AM Apr 01, 2008 by mbien in Java  |  Kommentare[11]