Saturday, June 30, 2007

Eclipse E-U-R-O-P-A

Yesterday a new version of the famous Java IDE Eclipse Codename 'Europa' has been released. I don't want to describe new features because there are a plenty of resources out there on the web so I just want to post a few important links which summarize all of the new functions of the new version of the IDE.

Of course you are welcome to post other good resources if you have found some.

Cheers

Friday, June 29, 2007

Important Chapters

Two posts ago, I proudly announced the purchasing of my new book. In this post I'd like to filter out the most important chapters for my bachelor-project where we implement and design a java-based kind of multimedia authoring tool which allows you to create hot spots within a QTVR object.

One of our main guidelines were/are that this application must work offline and on only on the client side. In the future students of our university should use this tool for the lecture "Multimedia 2" where they mainly use iShell as an authoring tool to create QT based presentations or games.

Because there was/is no such tool out there which is for free and open sourced, our teachers at university decided that out team should implement such kind of tool which simply allows you to create hot spots in QTVR objects.

Why based on the NetBeans Platform? Because this platform or framework allows you to reuse and simply to modify main rich client features e.g. menus or window handling so we don't have to spend time on coding this components.

Of course those are just a few issues why we would like to use this Platform. So now I'd like to filte the book's chapters which will be very important for our application und general knowledge about creating rich clients based on top of the NetBeans Platform.

  • Chapter 1 gets you set up and shows the basic process of creating a module.
  • Chapters 2 and 3 discuss the benefits of modularity and provide an overview of the modular structure of the NetBeans Platform.
  • Chapters 4 and 5 explain the concepts behind the way NetBeans modules work together and show you the platform’s mechanisms for making modular applications cohesive.
  • Chapter 6 introduces you to the Filesystems API, which is the NetBeans Platform’s base construct for handling both user data and system configuration data.
  • Chapter 7 consolidates information from previous chapters and shows you how to create a simple Navigator component for the platform.
  • Chapter 8 explains and demonstrates the NetBeans building blocks and features for creating mature multiwindow applications.
  • Chapter 11 shows off the IDE’s GUI Builder and how it simplifies developing user interfaces for NetBeans Platform applications.
  • Chapter 15 explains how to create a palette of objects and provides an example for enabling drag-and-drop of code snippets from the palette to a text editor.
  • Chapter 18 shows you how to add user-configurable options to your application:
  • Chapter 21 demonstrates how to integrate help documentation into your application.
  • Chapter 22 shows you how to make updates of your modules (and totally new modules) available to users in a dynamic update center.

Of course I'll also read the remaining chapters about web services and support for a web application framework but those chapters which i've listed above are mainly those chapters which I'll need for the bachelor project and actually there are not many remaining chapters ;o)

After I every chapter I'll post a short summery and will explain how I can use this new knowledge for our bachelor project.

Stay tuned and happy NetBeanin' as Roumen likes to say :o)

Cheers

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Debugging Custom Maven Plugins

What you need:

How to:

Code Snippets and Todos for debbuging:

  1. Write a custom Maven Plugin! (@see code snippet 1)
  2. Write a Maven Project which uses your maven-plugin (@see code snippet 2)
  3. Install everything in your local maven repository (mvn clean install)
  4. Set a breakpoint in your custom maven plugin. (@see code snippet 3)
  5. Open the debug-view in Eclipse (@see pic 1)
  6. Invoke your plugin's sayhi-goal in your maven project via m2eclipse-plugin by configuring it over the external tools settings in Eclipse. (@see pic 2)
  7. Eclipse then will automatically stop where you have set your breakpoint! (@see pic 3)

Code Snippet 1:

Code Snippet 2:

Code Snippet 3:

Pic 1:



Pic 2:

Pic 3:



How cool is this!! Finally, you don't have to System.out.println everything to check your custom maven-plugins' variables. Very, very helpful !!!

Cheers

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

New Book | Rich Client Programming

Finally... I bought myself a new book: "Rich Client Programming Plugging into the NetBeans Platform". Because of my bachelor-project where we've decided to use the NetBeans Platform to build our application on top of it, I bought this book to get more deatails about this framework. Here's the book's official homepage. More books about the NetBeans IDE. Amazon Link to my new book.


From Misc

If you also are interested in developing rich clients on top of the NetBeans Platform you must check this book out. You also should have a look the the author's weblogs which I'd like summerize:

Happy NetBeanin' ...

Cheers

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Maven | Resources

Because at work I had to prepare myself for a presentation about the fascinating build-tool Maven I'd like to summarize all resources which I've used to get prepared.

Official Sites


Online Articles and Books

Magazines

  • Eclipse Magazin (Vol. 7 Ausgabe 3 06) - m2
  • Java Magazin (09. 06) - Maven 2

Maven Proxies

IDE Plugins

Blogs

Of course this list will be extended and if you have any good resources on maven which is not my list, you are welcome to leave me a comment with a link to this resource.

Cheers

Monday, June 25, 2007

S-K-I-L-L-Z



AJAX Frameworks | Short Summery

In this post I'd lilke to summerize a article in the actual javamag about AJAX-frameworks. First of all there are three categories:
  • Categorie 1: low-level-frameworks: here you will get support on the lowest 'javascript'-level. e.g. Prototype Framework
  • Categorie 2: based on categorie 1. focuses more on the gui-side of you application. e.g. dojo-toolkit.
  • Categorie 3: frameworks contain both gui-components and remoting-functionality.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Maven 2.0.7 | Out now

Here you will find the release notes. In this post I'd like to check the new version of Maven and I'd like to describe all changes in my mother tongue (german) because you'll find the english version of the release notes on the official maven-website. So, lets switch to german:

Release Notes Maven 2.0.7

Verbesserungen

  • TODO

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Some great new P-I-X

Last w/e we had a great time celerbrating Babsi's aka Böps Möps birthday. Weather was chilly, people were great, altogether it was an awesome party.

The following pix were made by Christoph aka Türc aka coolmcflash. If you like the style how the pix are made then you have to check out türc's personal Flickr-Site. You also must check out his sis' site aka L-u-s-s-i.

Böps Möps Birthday Party






From Böps Möps Bir...


Cheers