NetBeans has released the second milestone product some days ago. There are many articles on PlanetNetBeans(http://www.planetnetbeans.org) which were talking about the newest features NetBeans 6.7 will bring. Maven support is a highlight feature of them. Many peoples have praised the Maven support in NetBeans 6.7. I am a maven fan, but after I tried it, I was disappointed.
Maven support is an incomplete work now. As described on NetBeans wiki, it supports JEE and Java Web project creation now. I found this functionality is only a short-circuit of the normal "Maven Project". In the second step of the wizard, it only provide a extra Java EE version option. In my idea, it must support: target server selection, project relation (parent Maven module and child Maven module) settings and web framework configuration.
For "Web project", ideally, in the project definition panel , it must provide a "Add to existed Enterprise Application" option to add current maven project as a module to the parent module(a enterprise application). And support specifying the target runtime server , it should support adding suitable server which are defined in "Servers" node in "Services" windows , and it is better to support adding embeded server plugin(jetty). Web framework configuration support is a must for web project.
For "Enterprise project", beside server selection and Java EE version options , it should support creating "Web Module"," EJB Module" and "App Client Module" in the same wizard, and let user can modify the default name and location of children modules(war, ejb, ear).
For "EJB project", like web projct without web framework selection.
Another problem is the "Add library" dialog which occurs when you right click the "Library" node in the Project view. The new "add library" dialog maybe merged from the "Add Library" and "Find Dependency" in NetBeans 6.5. But I dislike this feature , I preferred using the query-result style ( like "Find Dependency" in NetBeans 6.5) view. The three fields in "Add library" dialog are implemented the "Code Completation" feature , maybe some body like it. But on my machine , It is too slow. When I input first character, I must took some minutes waiting the code completion context menu, after it displayed , then I could input the second character. Beside this, not everybody can remember the first part of group id , artifact id of every maven artifacts. For example, if you want add "common logging" dependency to your project, it is a apache project , you maybe guess the group id is "org.apache.commons". But you are wrong , it is "commons". In this way , I wasted much time on guessing the group id and at last I had to give up , and turned to use the Maven repository browser to search it. Obviously this feature is no use for me. My suggestion is remove it from NetBeans 6.7, use the simple query-style view instead it. In this approach , it must search the keyword( the word user input in the query field) in group id , artifact id , package name and full class name of all artifacts in the whole maven repository. So the NetBeans GUI maybe looks united, in the "Navigate" menu, all "Go To" dialogs use this simple UI style.
The third small defect I found is the "Files" windows in Maven project , it displays the logic name of some nodes , not the real system directory name.
Maven support is an incomplete work now. As described on NetBeans wiki, it supports JEE and Java Web project creation now. I found this functionality is only a short-circuit of the normal "Maven Project". In the second step of the wizard, it only provide a extra Java EE version option. In my idea, it must support: target server selection, project relation (parent Maven module and child Maven module) settings and web framework configuration.
For "Web project", ideally, in the project definition panel , it must provide a "Add to existed Enterprise Application" option to add current maven project as a module to the parent module(a enterprise application). And support specifying the target runtime server , it should support adding suitable server which are defined in "Servers" node in "Services" windows , and it is better to support adding embeded server plugin(jetty). Web framework configuration support is a must for web project.
For "Enterprise project", beside server selection and Java EE version options , it should support creating "Web Module"," EJB Module" and "App Client Module" in the same wizard, and let user can modify the default name and location of children modules(war, ejb, ear).
For "EJB project", like web projct without web framework selection.
Another problem is the "Add library" dialog which occurs when you right click the "Library" node in the Project view. The new "add library" dialog maybe merged from the "Add Library" and "Find Dependency" in NetBeans 6.5. But I dislike this feature , I preferred using the query-result style ( like "Find Dependency" in NetBeans 6.5) view. The three fields in "Add library" dialog are implemented the "Code Completation" feature , maybe some body like it. But on my machine , It is too slow. When I input first character, I must took some minutes waiting the code completion context menu, after it displayed , then I could input the second character. Beside this, not everybody can remember the first part of group id , artifact id of every maven artifacts. For example, if you want add "common logging" dependency to your project, it is a apache project , you maybe guess the group id is "org.apache.commons". But you are wrong , it is "commons". In this way , I wasted much time on guessing the group id and at last I had to give up , and turned to use the Maven repository browser to search it. Obviously this feature is no use for me. My suggestion is remove it from NetBeans 6.7, use the simple query-style view instead it. In this approach , it must search the keyword( the word user input in the query field) in group id , artifact id , package name and full class name of all artifacts in the whole maven repository. So the NetBeans GUI maybe looks united, in the "Navigate" menu, all "Go To" dialogs use this simple UI style.
The third small defect I found is the "Files" windows in Maven project , it displays the logic name of some nodes , not the real system directory name.
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A theme like yours with a few simple tweeks would really make my blog shine.
Please let me know where you got your design. Bless you
My blog post: Layne Tucker