Extending the NetBeans Projects Window

Hi Geertjan

Sorry, some tags got clobbered on that last post. Here's a correction: ...

So, to be specific, in project.xml, I have a new <action> element under my <ide-actions>. Now I need to figure out how to add a context-menu item for the project that triggers that action. In my case, I set the action to <action name="compile.single"> so I can trigger it from the Build/Compile File menu.

TIA

Patrick

Hi Geertjan

I checked back to see if there was a reply, and found my posting, in two parts, was cropped so only one part (the important one) got posted.

Here's my situation/use case: I have XDoclet tags that currently process a whole directory tree. There is one global flag to check if XDoclet needs to run, but if it does need to run, it runs against the whole tree. This takes several minutes, so when I just modify 1 file there's a long delay to see the new generated output.

I want to pass in a file name, or multiple file names, into my Ant script, so that the XDoclet tag processes just those files (or all files if I pass nothing in). I have modified the XDoclet script in Ant to take one or more files, have tested it. Now I want to use that Ant target from NetBeans, passing in the current file or selected files in the Project view.

This is about the same as "Debug Single File". The issue is, I can create an <ide-actions> entry for my special new target, and I can trigger it, say, with "Compile Single File". That is, NB already knows about the compile.single or debug.single targets and when I map those to an Ant task, it knows how to run them. How can I map a menu item to a custom <ide-actions> entry, such as "Run XDoclet on Current File"?

That's it! The script works, everything works, I just can't trigger the script from within NB without a hack--changing the meaning of an existing tag like "Compile Single File" to mean something else.

Thanks, Patrick

<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/geertjan/runxdocletoncurrentfile.png">

<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/geertjan/runtothehills2.png">

<img src="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/geertjan/runtothehills1.png">

Hi Geertjan--I am aware of that option, but it does something different. You can take a target in the Ant file and map it to a GUI menu command. When you do that, the Ant target is executed (pretty much) as if it had been run from the command line.

What I am looking for is something a little different. If you look at the documentation on Advanced Free-Form Project Configuration, see section http://www.netbeans.org/kb/41/freeform-config.html#runsingle. There, they set up an Ant target that expects to be called from NetBeans, and passed a variable called ${runclass}. If that variable is not given, the target will fail. I'm doing the same thing, except I'm calling an XDoclet target with a variable called ${files}. If I map the way you did, on Project Properties/Build and Run, the Ant target will be called but with no special variables. However, it is possible to do, the question is whether it will work if you step outside of run.single, debug.single, etc. as the examples are limited to those situations.

Try adding this to your Ant build file:

<target name="do-single-file" depends="" if="netbeans.home" description="For a Single File">
  <fail unless="files">Must set property 'files'</fail>
  <echo>Targeting file(s): ${files}</echo>
  <echo>DONE</echo>
</target>      

Then add this to your project.xml file:

<action name="run-do-single-file">
    <target>do-single-file</target>
    <context>
        <property>files</property>
        <folder>source/java</folder>
        <pattern>\\.java$</pattern>
        <format>relative-path</format>
        <arity>
            <separated-files>,</separated-files>
        </arity>
    </context>
</action>

to your ide-actions section. No, how do you execute "run-do-single-file" from within NetBeans?

Thanks,

Patrick