Gregg Sporar's Blog

Watch Those Icons Closely

Yesterday in Geertjan's blog he covered some of the finer points of "branding" an application that is built on the NetBeans Platform. This is the process of replacing all the standard NetBeans icons and names, etc. with your own stuff.

It was a timely entry for me, since I'm currently trying to learn enough to create a small sample application for the BOF I'll be doing at JavaOne. But I got confused when he showed the .gif files. The name of the folder that contains those .gif files is branding/core/core.jar/org/netbeans/core/startup. When I looked at the screen snapshot he used, I focused in on "core.jar" and my brain immediately thought: "He's showing us an expanded .jar file but telling us to just drop our .gif files into a folder. What's up with that? Does he really mean that I need to add my .gif files to that .jar file?"

So I sent him an email and he responded with a blog entry today that made me realize my mistake. Notice the icon next to core.jar. It's a folder. That's because core.jar is the name of a folder, not the name of a .jar file. Doh! If it were a .jar file the NetBeans IDE would display it with the icon for a .jar file! I just got careless when looking at it....

In the end, no harm done and Geertjan got to write another in his (hopefully) endless series of helpful blogs for folks developing on the NetBeans Platform. If by chance you would like to ask Geertjan questions of your own, he'll be on the road during May. His first stop is in South Africa on May 5 for NetBeans Day South Africa.

Geertjan will also be in the house on May 15 at NetBeans Day San Francisco. The first four hundred people through the door in San Francisco will get a free copy of the NetBeans IDE Field Guide, 2nd Edition and a free USB drive. Seats are limited, so register now. The event is free and you do not have to be registered for JavaOne in order to attend.

Comments

• You've gotta be kidding me. Your very first app based on the NetBeans Platform is called "Leaking Swing App"?! While I realize what you're doing (i.e., creating a messed up application that you're going to fix by using the Profiler), you've got to admit that there's something a bit disrespectful about using the NetBeans Platform to intentionally create bad applications. It's a bit like making toilet paper out of silk.

  Posted by: geertjan on April 25, 2006 at 07:29 AM

• But I want those handy platform features! :-)

  Posted by: gsporar on April 25, 2006 at 07:40 AM

• Ooh, silk toilet paper. Sounds ... comfy.

  Posted by: richunger on April 25, 2006 at 01:22 PM

• Silk toilet paper! Have you got any? :o)
  If I had some silk I might not make toilet paper out of it; however, if I had some silk toilet paper surely I would be happy to try it out!
  Right back to the original topic... :-P
  I don't think Gregg is doing anything disrepectful - in fact he has done exactly the opposite. Imagine using a leaky RCP platform (may be there are real examples out there, who knows ;-) ) then introduce a new leak in your application. Profiling this application would be totally pointless since you'll get so many leaky signs that you can't really pinpoint your own one!

  Posted by: alexlamsl on April 26, 2006 at 05:15 AM

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