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Topics of post-6.0 work in Core & Platform areas in NetBeans

see CorePlatformAndProjectsPlan67 for more recent followup

Open unscheduled topics

Projects

• recognize that a user is using NetBeans only for profiling his project (e.g an Eclipse project) and suggest importing the project into NetBeans (-> jsedlacek)

• Packaging a project output into an OSGi bundle - OSGi is becoming more widespread, and for example, GlassFish v3 can be extended through OSGi bundles.

• improvements in project import and more precise autoconfiguration of freeform based on analysis of the build script
  (AutomaticProjects) (#135157)

• utilizing Maven repositories and index to resolve 3rd party library problems. Using Maven remote repositories for creating NetBeans library definitions.
  (MavenIndexingOnePager) (#134677)

• merge "from Scratch" and "with Existing Sources" project wizards
  (#123430)

• improve UI for resolving broken references
  (#123464)

• performance improvements
  • If you change a single file (particularly in a platform application), then running the application invokes a lot of ant targets and takes a long, long time. Perhaps this could be improved somehow to eliminate any unnecessary steps.

• elimination of copy&pasted code in the many existing project types
  • possibility to do optimizations in one place
  • write once & use in all project types for certain features (e.g. includes/excludes)
  • different levels of reuse, something applies to ant projects only, something is more general

ProjectTypeMusings

OSProjectsEvaluation

Maven Support

• extending the support to better cover advanced usecases

(any VOC about this? how many users who would profit from this potentially?)

• • profiling, debugging, deployment for web and j2ee projects
  • make webframeworks work (visual web)

• dependency graphing and analysis (also useful for Ivy support)

• catch up on project configuration capabilities (customizer panels etc) to make it comparable to ant projects.

Window System

Table of Core UI work post 6.0

Platform

• fixing launcher issues - New Windows launcher, #85228

• fix appearance of NetBeans on Mac OS X look and feel (#132291)

• TC persistency changes - PERSIST_LAYOUT option + adoption of Preferences API

• merge various Output and Result windows (#123429) - requested by xDesign, agreed as nice to have only

• common status line (#123344) - requested by xDesign, old window system relic, we're likely the only IDE that takes up space with the status line that's dedicated to editor

• style text in editor tabs
  (#47290)

• tasklist API enhancement for triggering actions

• possibility for real embedded web browser - could be WebKit which will be included in JDK 6u10 - evaluation was done; because WebKit will not be available via public API in JDK 6u10 using WebKit in NetBeans is postponed

• module system changes - compatibility with JSR 277

(what is the right moment to start working on this?)

• incorporate 3rd party libraries without library wrapper modules - use Maven for 3rd-party libraries, either in apisupport or directly in module system
  • related to JSR 277 as Stanley Ho reported that he has a bridge between JSR 277 APIs and Maven
  • ???!

• Print APIs and Preview - adopting what has been suggested by entpack team

but was not suitable for acceptance in platform in the form suggested

• multiview redesign to serve the reqs accumulated

• palette improvements - preview instead of icon

• Wizard API is waiting for redesign for long time

• Impl of IZ 55627: Double clicking the project template should move to next step

• actions support module - get rid of another SharedClassObject subclass - e.g. give people a chance to easy write their actions without the need to subclass NodeAction, CookieAction or co.

• running platform on top of Consumer JRE

• running platform as an applet?

(hard security issues -jglick)

• Center image in About dialog

• API for reading Proxy Settings, writing only via Options (friend API for writing Proxy Settings)

• search in Options dialog

• reset options to defaults #138595

• #140164 Turn off/on search highlighting in Javahelp content viewer. We will need to contribute this to Javahelp to implement this. Issue refers to Eclipse where this feature is available.

• review UI of JavaHelp viewer and possibly make it more "modern"?

APIsupport

• chaining of suites (a way of reusing modules for more apps - #83088, #114389, #125522, #134760)
  • (hard without rewrite of apisupport -jglick)

• support for modules owned by multiple suites

• many more wizards
  • Geertjan has wizard for "enhanced file type" - with multiview, with visual library, etc.
  • tasklist wizard
  • CLI option wizard
    • (bad priority, we have far better things to do -jglick)

• More GUI support for working with window system: defining new modes, editing .wstcref and .settings files

• support in build harness for building setup packages (preferably with a bundled JRE), just as you can build ZIP distributions now. see Tonny Kohar's blog for an example, but maybe OpenInstaller is an option too.

• create API to allow other people to write their own wizards (maybe with FreeMarker)

• make explorer views more matisse friendly - e.g. create their own category in component palette, add setExplorerManager/getExplorerManager to views.

• rewrite layer nodes (see IZ #72541)

• Support building javadoc for a suite

Autoupdate

• ImportPluginsFromReleaseToRelease
  (2 issues)

• Missing Module Resolver could be integrated into Autoupdate suite
  (#135278)
  • needs improved UI to be integrated more transparently

• AutoupdateSupportsMajorReleaseUpgrade
  (#135279)

• Updates of invisible modules not offered in Plugin Manager

• IDE As Big As You Want it (FeatureOnDemand)

• Download NBMs/Offline mode (OfflineMode) without installing them

• leveraging Plugin Portal - tighter communication between users and developers of plugins

from within the IDE (commenting and rating plugins, viewing stats about the plugins - #downloads)

• • reading additional data from PP (#downloads, ratings, comments) - showing them, allowing searching and sorting
  • allowing user to write data to PP (ratings, comments) - could be delegated to a web page on PP

• change logs for NBMs
  • APIsupport could allow this at the moment developer is increasing module version
  • PluginManagerIssues#JesseSChangelogSuggestion

• logging of changes done through autoupdate - for the user's view, or for sending to support/attaching to issue

• displaying more advanced information about plugins - dependencies, installation directory,...

• CLI client?

• support for Service Pack (NB6PatchingProcess) - NO!

• support for language packs?

(current implementation with dummy modules seems to be enough even for community contributed localizations, so the support for real language packs may be unnecessary)

• rollback of updates?

(makes sense only if we want to put more emphasis on sustaining older !NetBeans releases) -- well, supporting older releases is important for platform applications.

Gesture Collector

• task-focused UI (what is it all about actually? and how big change this would be?)
  • mkleint: can turn quite big, needs integration with issue tracking systems, complex manipulations with user's IDE desktop.

• tips and context sensitive help based on user's workflow

Collaboration

• simplification and stability - rewrite some parts of collaboration support (filesharing)

• employing the collaboration support (chat, filesharing, ...?)

in a much bigger team collaboration feature (TBD, cross-team effort)

• Continuous integration server integration, also touches projects area.

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Topics completed in 6.5

General

• Do not assume VM is running on JDK (#135512, #136269, #136354)
• key metrics - #138955, KeyMetrics, KeyMetricsUISpec, KeyMetricsImplementationNotes

Ant Projects

• enhanced JNLP support for the changes introduced in JDK 6u10
  (see JNLP support in the New Java Plug-In Technology), (#134680), UI Spec
• enhanced import of Eclipse projects (#135158) (EclipseProjectSupport)
  Scoped for 6.5 as a one-way import. (EclipseProjectImportOnePager)

Maven Projects

• remote repository browsing, querying, management, bootstrapping version control checkout.

Platform

• explorer+nodes performance improvements (#121913) (FitnessViaLaziness)
• UNC paths usage - in filesystems and also in the rest of the product (#46813)
• treetable view redesign (33281)
• Options (#109538) - API+impl for opening Options dialog with preselected subcategories, e.g. panels in Miscellaneous
• finish killing advanced options (#105589, #133773)
• support for informational error messages in wizards (#137737)

Autoupdate

• Expand uniqueID by one additional unique number unrelated to userdir (#137113)
• slightly changed behavior of balloon-like tooltip (#125119)

Window System

• changed default layout of windows (UI Spec)
• fix bugs on Nimbus L&F (#120656)
• modify sliding windows to support original window sizes (#135318)
• (partially) add new API for configuring existing visual aspects of window system - enable/disable DnD, floating windows, JFrames x jDialogs, tab layouts, sliding windows on/off, fixed layout. (#134670 )

Various UI issues

• Tasklist - visual finetuning of the window (#138189)
• Quick Search (#134398 ), UI and Func spec
• explain icon badges in tooltips(#123469)
• allow drag and drop of text selected in editor window into the common palette to create new code clips (#93002)

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Topics completed in 6.1

Projects

• shared libraries (OutOfBoxVersionability, #89629)
• UI changes in New Project wizard to make it more clear what freeform should be used for and that many users really want to use Java Project with Existing Sources (ThingsToDoToAvoidUsingFreeformProjectForPeopleWhoDonTReallyNeedIt)

Platform

• filesystem simplifications
  • getting rid of the old support for VCS Generic by peeling the upper delegating filesystem, locking for bulk operations, a few handy methods (#123542)
  • speeding up file locking mechanism (#106128)

Autoupdate

• Plugin Manager non-modal dialog box
• downloading plugins on background (#98870)
• wizard for automatic resolving of broken dependencies - Missing Modules Resolver available on Beta UC of 6.1
• semitransparent lightweight popup window which indicates that some updates of plugins are available. (#122751)
• stabilize APIs/SPIs (#19930)
• Allow setting AU check interval programmatically

IDE

• user registration (NbRegistration), service tags