Plug-in - NetBeans

Plug-in Module Quick Start
The line with the calls to
NotifyDescriptor and Dialog
Displayer are underlined and
marked as an error. This is
because the related packages
have not been declared yet. In
the Projects window, right-click
the MyFirstModule project node and choose
Properties. In the Libraries pane, click Add.
Type “notifyd” and notice that the returned
list narrows until the package that contains
“NotifyDescriptor” is displayed (see Figure 3). Click OK. The
Dialogs API is added to the Module Dependencies list. Click
OK to confirm and exit the Project Properties dialog box.
In the Source Editor, click Alt-Shift-F. Two new import statements
are added to the top of the source file and the red
underlining disappears:
import org.openide.DialogDisplayer;
import org.openide.NotifyDescriptor;
The plug-in module is now complete. Next, you need to
install and use it.
A 4
Installing and Using
the Plug-in Module
The IDE uses an Ant build script to build and install your plug-in
module. The build script is created for you when you create the
plug-in module project.
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Figure 4
The new menu item for
the plug-in module
Installing the Plug-in Module
In the Projects window, right-click the MyFirstModule project and
choose Install/Reload in Target Platform.
The plug-in module is built and installed in the target platform.
The target platform is set in Tools>NetBeans Platform Manager.
The target platform opens so that you can try out your new plug-in
module. The default target IDE or Platform is the installation used by
the current instance of the development IDE.
A 5
A 6
Using the Plug-in Module
In the newly opened IDE’s menu bar, you should see the new menu
and menu item, together with the icon you specified in the Action
wizard; see Figure 4.
Choose the menu item to invoke the performAction() method in
MyFirstAction.java. You should see the JOptionPane with its message,
as shown in Figure 5. Click the toolbar button. It calls the same
action and so has the same result. It should look something like
Figure 6.
Summary
This tutorial showed how to create a simple plug-in module project,
including a new menu item and a toolbar button. You also saw how
to install and use the new module. N
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Figure 5
The plug-in
module in action
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Figure 6
New toolbar
button for t
First Edition N 57