Ant-Based Project Support
Official

AntProjectAPI

See:
Description

Ant-Based Project Support

org.netbeans.api.project.ant	Ways of getting information about Ant-based projects useful from other projects.
org.netbeans.spi.project.ant	Pluggable implementations of inter-project Ant dependencies.
org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant	Principal package for implementing typical Ant-based projects.
org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.ui	Package containing classes supporting development of UI for Ant-based projects.

AntProjectAPI

Mostly an SPI for creating project types centered around the Ant build tool. Permits Ant-based project types to be registered and supplies various support implementations to help satisfy the contract of Project and various optional interfaces.

What is New (see all changes)?

• Jan 22 '08 Support for project-specific libraries

  A new XML schema (http://www.netbeans.org/ns/ant-project-libraries/1), several new API methods (AntProjectHelper.getProjectLibrariesPropertyProvider, AntProjectHelper.isSharableProject, AntProjectHelper.getLibrariesLocation, AntProjectHelper.setLibrariesLocation, ProjectGenerator.createProject(FileObject, String, String), ReferenceHelper.createForeignFileReferenceAsIs, ReferenceHelper.createExtraForeignFileReferenceAsIs, ReferenceHelper.copyLibrary, ReferenceHelper.getLibraryChooserImportHandler, ReferenceHelper.createLibraryReference, ReferenceHelper.getProjectLibraryManager, ReferenceHelper.findLibrary) and custom file chooser (FileChooser) provide support for collocated library definitions referred to from Ant-based projects.

• Oct 8 '07 Support for adding external files owned by project

  Added a method for registering external file that is supposed to be owned by the project, typically used in freeform project to register build products that are external to project dir.

• Apr 10 '07 Support for externally extending the project's build script

  Add framework for extending the project's build script with 3rd party snippets, allowing automated extensions to the build process.

• Mar 1 '07 Support for source root includes and excludes

  Ant-based projects can now conveniently specify include and exclude lists for source groups based on Ant's standard patternset syntax.

• Sep 8 '06 Added utilities for constructing richer property evaluators

  Added a new class and a new method to PropertyUtils to make it easier to write a customizer version of AntProjectHelper.getStandardPropertyEvaluator(), among other things.

Use Cases

Mostly an SPI for use by project type providers to create the project type. Also includes a small API/SPI for other projects to find what Ant build steps are necessary to create a certain build product, for use in inter-project dependencies.

Ant project support faq:

How to use support for storing project properties?

Q: I'm creating a customizer (properties dialog) for my project type. I wan't to use the support for simple data types. What do I need to do?

You basicaly need to do two things. First create the representation of the project properties which can be used in the GUI. Second at some time convert the objects back to the ANT properties form and store them into the project.

• Creating the object representation.
  1. Create new instance of StoreGroup for each group of properties you want to store later e.g. project and prvate. Sometimes it might be useful to create temporary source group which will only be used for creating the models without being used for storing. E.g. for properties which need special handling.
  2. Call the factory methods e.g. createBooleanButtonModel, createStringDocument, etc. which will create the swing models for you.
  3. Use the models in your Swing controls by calling setModel() or setDocument()
• Storing the models back to the proprties of project.
  1. Get the EditableProperties you want to store the model in e.g. private or project properties
  2. Call the store method on given SourceGroup with the EditableProperties as parameter
  3. Manually store models which need some special handling.

Exported Interfaces

This table lists all of the module exported APIs with defined stability classifications. It is generated based on answers to questions about the architecture of the module. Read them all...

Group of java interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
AntProjectAPI	Exported	Official	Mostly an SPI for creating project types centered around the Ant build tool. Permits Ant-based project types to be registered and supplies various support implementations to help satisfy the contract of Project and various optional interfaces.

Group of property interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
netbeans.do.not.check.xalan	Exported	Private	The "netbeans.do.not.check.xalan" property switches off the startup check for buggy Xalan. See issue #70130 for more information.

Implementation Details

Where are the sources for the module?

The sources for the module are in the NetBeans Mercurial repositories.

What do other modules need to do to declare a dependency on this one, in addition to or instead of a plain module dependency?

Nothing.

Read more about the implementation in the answers to architecture questions.