Articles

In this section, developers can find descriptions of design concepts, use cases and technical solutions for the NetBeans platform.

NetBeans Platform

NetBeans Installation Structure. This detailed document describes the requirements on the installation structure of a NetBeans based application.

Extending the IDE

NetBeans Projects. General information about the NetBeans project system.

Build System Design. In NetBeans 4.0 a new build system was introduced. An Ant-based design was selected, with principal design goals including architectural simplicity, ease of expansion, robust headless builds, good control by project type of the UI, and an initial feature set adequate for everyday development. This document outlines the fundamental design principles of that system.

Contributing to NetBeans

Building NetBeans IDE. A quick guide to building the IDE with Apache Ant. All you need to know to build the NetBeans IDE from sources.

NetBeans Source Structure. Want to contribute source to the NetBeans project? Read how are the sources organized in CVS and what are the branching and tagging policies.

Contributing New Modules. Step by step instructions to contribute a new module to the NetBeans project.

Contributing Patches. Well-described, easy-to-apply patches are a pleasure for a developer to receive and go a long way towards making the IDE more stable and powerful. Read what you should to do to contribute a patch.

How to Add a New Library. Do you want to integrate another third-party library that might be shared among several NetBeans modules? This document explains how.