Tuesday, May 19, 2009

How to attach an external jar without wrapping it

Netbeans Platform creators recommend wrapping all external JARs into dedicated module. I don't want to. I just want to include it in my module. The way to do it (described here) is to put all needed jars in release/modules/ext folder and adding some extra XML to project.xml
<class-path-extension>
<runtime-relative-path>ext/hexedit.jar</runtime-relative-path>
<binary-origin>release/modules/ext/hexedit.jar</binary-origin>
</class-path-extension>

Repeat this section for every jar put in ...ext folder.
Immediately you should see them in Libraries folder of you Project's view.

New Netbeans Plugin on the way

I'm during exploring Netbeans Platform architecture. I like it very much. As I already have a Netbeans Platform Certified Associate certificate, I plan to gain higher level Netbeans Certified Engineer.

To achieve that I have to write a Netbeans Platform plugin. It will be a IM client with various awesome features ;) My plans were commented by Geertjan Wielenga (Netbeans Documentation and Tutorials master writer) whom I met personally. Geertjan said that my plugin would qualified me as a Certified Engineer. Awesome! :D

So I'm developing it right now, at 1:20am as this is the only time when I don't have to look after my children :)

I plan to put some early screenshots as soon as there will be something good to show.