netbeans plugins: kenai vs contrib

[Sam Halliday]

Dear all,

I have push access to the "contrib" repository. However, this repository gets no exposure outside the development community, so I have completely lost the will to submit anything to it. Specifically, there are no contrib branches for the releases, and contrib is not included in the Netbeans Plugins list like the 3rd party or "beta" repositories are. I therefore cannot even use my own plugins on my stable 6.7 Netbeans.

For plugin development, what is kenai like? Can it be set up to do nightly builds and is it possible to set up a URL for inclusion in the Netbeans Plugins list?

Also, is there any way around the "friends" system for API export in the netbeans source? My RFE http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=89258 is being tested in Java Experimental Hints, but there is a portion that uses a "friends only" package (it's a sort of a hack in contrib, because a portion of the code is really an error hint fix, whereas the proper patch is included in the RFE). I can't port this to kenai unless there is a workaround.

[Sam Halliday]

Ignore this part of my post, I do not think the "friends" system is causing the problem. I am unable to access the org.netbeans.modules.java.editor.imports public package from 6.7.1 even though I've added the Java Editor module. (also the org.netbeans.modules.editor.java.Utilities class)

Sam Halliday wrote:

Also, is there any way around the "friends" system for API export in the netbeans source? My RFE http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=89258 is being tested in Java Experimental Hints, but there is a portion that uses a "friends only" package (it's a sort of a hack in contrib, because a portion of the code is really an error hint fix, whereas the proper patch is included in the RFE). I can't port this to kenai unless there is a workaround.

[Tomas Pavek]

Sam Halliday wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have push access to the "contrib" repository. However, this repository
> gets no exposure outside the development community, so I have completely
> lost the will to submit anything to it. Specifically, there are no contrib
> branches for the releases, and contrib is not included in the Netbeans
> Plugins list like the 3rd party or "beta" repositories are. I therefore
> cannot even use my own plugins on my stable 6.7 Netbeans.
>
> For plugin development, what is kenai like? Can it be set up to do nightly
> builds and is it possible to set up a URL for inclusion in the Netbeans
> Plugins list?

To publish your plugins use e.g. http://plugins.netbeans.org/PluginPortal/.

What repository you use for sources is pretty independent on that. You can
indeed create a project on Kenai to host the sources or even provide binaries
to download. You can then link it also from the plugin portal. Note Kenai has
no automatic continuous building infrastructure.

>
> Also, is there any way around the "friends" system for API export in the
> netbeans source? My RFE http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=89258
> is being tested in Java Experimental Hints, but there is a portion that uses
> a "friends only" package (it's a sort of a hack in contrib, because a
> portion of the code is really an error hint fix, whereas the proper patch is
> included in the RFE). I can't port this to kenai unless there is a
> workaround.

You can only use packages that are declared as public in project.xml of given
module. Or friend packages if the module knows you as a friend. But friends
are usually only closely related modules in the same cluster. You can also
access everything in a module if you declare dependency on the exact
implementation version (see the module system documentation). That is only at
your own risk - non-public APIs may change any time. Also the impl. version of
modules change very often (practically you can provide your plugin for a
specific build, typically the final release build). For experimental modules
this can be ok...

[Jesse Glick]

Sam Halliday wrote:
> there are no contrib
> branches for the releases

There are release65/contrib and release67/contrib repos, branched from trunk at the same time as main.

> contrib is not included in the Netbeans
> Plugins list like the 3rd party or "beta" repositories are. I therefore
> cannot even use my own plugins on my stable 6.7 Netbeans.

Add

http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/nbms-and-javadoc/lastStableBuild/artifact/nbbuild/nbms/updates.xml.gz

as an update center in Plugin Manager and you can. By default this UC is only exposed to dev builds, since its contents have no quality control.

Of course you can also choose to publish plugins on the Plugin Portal - in this case you need to manually build and upload them when you think they are ready.

[Sam Halliday]

Oh excellent, I never knew about the release67/contrib branch!

It would be good if there was some form of quality control to enable this to be shipped in the plugins list.

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> there are no contrib
> branches for the releases

There are release65/contrib and release67/contrib repos, branched from trunk at the same time as main.

> contrib is not included in the Netbeans
> Plugins list like the 3rd party or "beta" repositories are. I therefore
> cannot even use my own plugins on my stable 6.7 Netbeans.

Add

http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/nbms-and-javadoc/lastStableBuild/artifact/nbbuild/nbms/updates.xml.gz

as an update center in Plugin Manager and you can. By default this UC is only exposed to dev builds, since its contents have no quality control.

Of course you can also choose to publish plugins on the Plugin Portal - in this case you need to manually build and upload them when you think they are ready.

[Sam Halliday]

Hold on a second... that URL builds from main-golden, not from any of the releaseX branches you've highlighted.

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> there are no contrib
> branches for the releases

There are release65/contrib and release67/contrib repos, branched from trunk at the same time as main.

> contrib is not included in the Netbeans
> Plugins list like the 3rd party or "beta" repositories are. I therefore
> cannot even use my own plugins on my stable 6.7 Netbeans.

Add

http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/nbms-and-javadoc/lastStableBuild/artifact/nbbuild/nbms/updates.xml.gz

as an update center in Plugin Manager and you can. By default this UC is only exposed to dev builds, since its contents have no quality control.

Of course you can also choose to publish plugins on the Plugin Portal - in this case you need to manually build and upload them when you think they are ready.

[Jesse Glick]

Sam Halliday wrote:
> Hold on a second... that URL builds from main-golden, not from any of the
> releaseX branches you've highlighted.

 From main-silver and main/contrib to be precise, yes. There are no automated builders that I know of for release*/contrib, though I suppose there could be.

[Sam Halliday]

I really really think there should be builders for releaseX/contrib. How can we go about requesting it to be set up?

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> Hold on a second... that URL builds from main-golden, not from any of the
> releaseX branches you've highlighted.

 From main-silver and main/contrib to be precise, yes. There are no automated builders that I know of for release*/contrib, though I suppose there could be.

[Jesse Glick]

Sam Halliday wrote:
> I really really think there should be builders for releaseX/contrib. How can
> we go about requesting it to be set up?

I have tried to set one up: http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/

[Sam Halliday]

Excellent! :-D I will give it a whirl and let you know.

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> I really really think there should be builders for releaseX/contrib. How can
> we go about requesting it to be set up?

I have tried to set one up: http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/

[Sam Halliday]

Jesse, just to check... does this mean that adding

http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/updates.xml

should provide the plugins? I'm not seeing anything.


Excellent! :-D I will give it a whirl and let you know.

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> I really really think there should be builders for releaseX/contrib. How can
> we go about requesting it to be set up?

I have tried to set one up: http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/

[Jesse Glick]

Sam Halliday wrote:
> does this mean that adding
>
> http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/updates.xml
>
> should provide the plugins? I'm not seeing anything.

Did you add your plugins to the list as http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/ documents?

[Sam Halliday]

I haven't added anything. How can I add Experimental Java Hints? Please add it if it's trivial for you to do so ;-)

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> does this mean that adding
>
> http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/updates.xml
>
> should provide the plugins? I'm not seeing anything.

Did you add your plugins to the list as http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/ documents?

[Sam Halliday]

Just worked out to add it! Thanks for setting this up, Jesse!


I haven't added anything. How can I add Experimental Java Hints? Please add it if it's trivial for you to do so ;-)

Jesse Glick wrote:

Sam Halliday wrote:
> does this mean that adding
>
> http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/updates.xml
>
> should provide the plugins? I'm not seeing anything.

Did you add your plugins to the list as http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/release67-contrib/ documents?