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A few new NetBeans modules - VNC, Breadcrumbs, License Header Changer, a better Java Navigator and morePosted by timboudreau on April 26, 2009 at 11:21 PM PDT
I just uploaded a bunch of modules I've been working on to the NetBeans Plugin Portal, and put their source code into NetBeans source repository. I'll also get them available in the daily build update center soon.
Some of them are things I've had lying around for a while, some are new:
contrib/ for about a year. When I wrote the original Navigator component for NetBeans 4.1, it was intended as a fast way of navigating through source files - single click navigation, use a list rather than a tree to avoid horizontal scrolling, and it could abbreviate class member names to keep them visible (even doing weird tricks with removing vowels). The Navigator actually started as an example for NetBeans: The Definitive Guide, and I found I couldn't live without it.
Alas, in 6.0 it fell victim to the Every other IDE uses a tree for this, therefore we have to use a tree too mentality (on my list with But that's the way we've always done it! of thought patterns that ought to be firing offenses...). So this is a Navigator that works the way it was intended to work - as a tool for quickly navigating a source file with a single click or a few keystrokes (it's on the right in the screen shot below).
The Annoyance Whacker module is something I'd encourage regular users of NetBeans not to use - it turns off features that help us know how many people are using NetBeans and what features we should concentrate on (if you choose to tell us - no personal data, just statistics). But if you develop NetBeans modules for a living, A. you're probably not a typical user - my usage patterns would only skew the metrics, and B., you probably start NetBeans 50-100 times a day, and popups on every startup get really annoying. So this module gets rid of a few mouse or keyboard gestures every time I start NetBeans.
A lovely (to me anyway) tan theme (click the image for the full size version) »
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Netbeans Comments
Comments are listed in date ascending order (oldest first)
Submitted by kunstmusik on Tue, 2009-04-28 10:42.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for sharing these! Regarding the source, I browsed the netbeans Hg repository but wasn't sure where exactly to find the source. I'm particularly interested in the "Get a Tan" module. Could you point me to where I should be looking?
Thanks!
steven
Submitted by kunstmusik on Tue, 2009-04-28 12:08.
Thanks! Got the project cloned here now. I was having problems with my porting of an app to Netbeans, particularly with the custom theme of mine, and this will be very helpful to review. Thanks again!
steven
Submitted by chrisl91 on Thu, 2009-04-30 16:29.
Hi Tim, thanks for the great stuff in the blog. Just added it to my RSS feeds.
I'm interested in the VNC client for Netbeans but the source zip file seems to be corrupted on SourceForge. Is there somewhere else I can find it?
Thanks
Submitted by timboudreau on Fri, 2009-05-01 07:57.
SourceForge?
Actually the VNC module sources aren't available in one piece anywhere yet. I didn't want to host a fork of TightVNC if it was avoidable (just on the general principle of not forking something unless you have to), I was hoping to get the patches accepted (see http://www.nabble.com/Hacking-the-Java-TightVNC-client-td20454903.html - the changes are attached to a bug report referenced in that thread) - but at the same time, they were pretty extensive - the UI and protocol handling were really completely tied together (you don't really want to instantiate an Applet to show a VNC ui in a random JComponent) and it took several days of careful refactoring to tease them apart. Alas, I haven't had the time to help with integrating them, and I'm not sure it will happen if I don't.
I suppose it would be easy enough to set up a new project on Kenai or somewhere with the sources and the module sources (the module sources are pretty trivial - adds a VNC node to the Services tab and provides a UI for configuring and persisting server settings).
In the meantime, if you want to contact me by email, I'd be happy to send you a copy.
Submitted by timboudreau on Fri, 2009-05-01 08:00.
Addendum: The reason the module sources can't go in contrib/ on hg.netbeans.org is that the lawyers won't allow any sources there that are license-incompatible with the rest of NetBeans (yes these are the same lawyers with whom that is fine on java.net and kenai.com, and no this makes no sense, but it's also not a battle worth fighting). TightVNC is plain GPL therefore so is the module that integrates it (NB is GPL + classpath extension and/or CDDL).
Submitted by chrisl91 on Fri, 2009-05-01 09:25.
Thanks Tim, I'll shoot you an email. What is your preferred email address?
BTW, here is where I was trying to get the refactored sources
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2307956&group_i...
Chris
Submitted by timboudreau on Fri, 2009-05-01 10:56.
@steven:
> I was having problems with my porting of an app to Netbeans, particularly with the custom theme of mine
Don't know if this will help that much - it basically brutally mows through all the keys and values in UIManager and replaces anything resembling white, gray or black.
I tested it with Windows & Metal; for GTK or any synth-based l&f that uses native painting, it will probably just make things very ugly.
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