Overview (Ant-Based Project Support)

Ant-Based Project Support
Package	Description
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)?

Mar 14 '13 Added CustomizerUtilities.createLicenseHeaderCustomizerPanel

CustomizerUtilities.createLicenseHeaderCustomizerPanel() was introduced to allow project modules to create license header selection and editing panel.
Jan 20 '12 Added AntProjectHelper.createSharabilityQuery2

AntProjectHelper.createSharabilityQuery2 was introduced to avoid the deprecated SharabilityQueryImplementation.
Apr 19 '11 Added getLibraryChooserImportHandler method into ReferenceHelper accepting URL

A new method enables a client to specify target folder different from AntProjectHelper.getLibrariesLocation
Jun 4 '09 Added SourceGroupModifierImplementation implementation for Ant-based projects

Added method SourcesHelper.createSourceGroupModifierImplementation creating SourceGroupModifierImplementation implementation for Ant-based projects. Also added SourcesHelper.SourceRootConfig class and SourcesHelper.sourceRoot(String location) method for more readable configuration of source roots. These support additional parameter hint(), which is required for the implementation to work. Existing SourcesHelper.addPrincipalSourceRoot and SourcesHelper.addTypedSourceRoot methods are deprecated.
Apr 2 '09 Added SourcesHelper constructor accepting Project

The new constructor enables simplified control flow.

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 systemproperty 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.

Group of preferences interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
knownValidProjectXmlCRC32s	Exported	Private	A LRU list of CRC-32s of `project.xml` files known to validate successfully is kept to avoid the need to validate files just to load projects, especially during startup.

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.

Ant-Based Project SupportOfficial