Internal Netbeans Plugin Portal - netbeans

I need to use Netbeans in an environment where all the dependencies, to include all the plugins used by Netbeans, are pulled from a curated set. Surprisingly, there is not much available on hosting a netbeans plugin portal, I have found:
https://github.com/timboudreau/meta-update-center (so far the best option),
A 10 year old stackoverflow post (Netbeans Platform application using the plugin system) with broken links,
And a discussion in the Netbeans mailing list (https://www.mail-archive.com/dev#netbeans.apache.org/msg05664.html) on why this is a bad idea.
The goal is to host a plugin portal internally that Netbeans can use to list available plugins and update from when a new version is approved. The Tim Boudreau solution appears to be the best option I have been able to find. Are there any other options available?

Related

Eclipse offline Extensions install in an almost completely closed environment (proxy)

Initial position:
Currently I'm at a customer's site who has completely locked up his system (VM), and through a proxy blocks nearly everything, including the connections to download the extensions of Eclipse.
In the Eclipse marketplace you can find the download links, but they are of no use to me. Since the proxy locks everything out.
If you use the download link, you will get to this page, which ONLY refers to the integration in Eclipse via the web. This is currently not possible for me!
A reference to the M2E version only leads to the page mentioned above.
https://www.eclipse.org/m2e/
The customer only allows Eclipse no other programs.
It is unbelievable ^^
Is there a way to install offline extensions in Eclipse like Visual Studio code?
What I need is a Maven/Java based version, including Jenkins integration.
I currently used a portable version of Eclipse from the points already described. Yes, the download of complete versions is possible and not blocked, just the integration of plugins and extensions.

Boostrapping new Eclipse machines with all the Plugins

Bootstrapping Eclipse on new machines is such a time consuming process, you wind up asking yourself whether you really need each plugin. But there all handy, and help develop consistent habits.
Eclipse bootstrapping problems include:
Explaining / documenting what needs to happen
The actual time pasting in the right URLs and downloading
Version compatibility and dependencies
Eclipse likes to restart after each one
The changeover to the Eclipse Marketplace means that some plugins and instructions you find on the web tend to be inconsistent, depending on when they were written.
The Licenses... over and over and over... yes, yes, yes... I understand that the person installing needs to be aware of it, and have a chance to review them, but there's got to be a better way.
It'd be nice to have "patch file" (either binary or meta) that spells out what I want to add on top of stock Eclipse installation. I'd really like to find (or create) a 1 or 2 step process that sets up Eclipse, plus a favorite batch of plugins:
subclipse
m2eclipse
jetty support like runjettyrun
android sdk and plugin (or at least just the plugin)
aspectj
Web Objects / WOLiops
python, other langs
JVM Monitor, maybe EclEmma
probably a git plugin pretty soon.
Does command line maven help with any of this? It seems like its repository management would fit at least part of the functionality.
On a machine with an Eclipse installation matching your needs use File -> Export -> Install -> Installed software items to file. Import the generated file using the same menu on all other machines.
As Scott says, a good approach is to simply package a fully prepared Eclipse installation once all the plugins you need are installed. The downside is that you have to update most plugins afterwards.
Another option is to use Yoxos. With it, you can create a profile and configure it with all the plugins you need (and apparently Yoxos can do more than that).
Finally, this page might interest you concerning the configuration side of things.
Solution 1 is too search for more advanced Eclipse distributions.
For example, STS (Spring Tool Suite) comes with
AspectJ
EGit
m2e
(and of course) Spring IDE
One small trick can be done with m2e-android - Android Configurator for M2E Maven Integration. If installing it on clean Eclipse, it will also automatically resolve to install :
m2e
Android Developer Tools (ADT)

what is the correct version of Eclipse for Coldfusion?

Usually when one wants to create a new file in the Eclipse IDE , Java, Javascript, Colsdfusion PHP etc are provided as the options for the new files.
I recently downloaded Eclipse for Coldfusion 8 and excecuted the file "software/dw/java/europa/J2EE-SDK-Europa-33-win32.zip" .
Now when I want to create a New File "only JAVA " option is available. There is no coldfusion or HTML!
So can any one provide me the Exact/correct link for Codfusion related Eclipse?
(On the Eclipse website there are many Eclipse related downloads but I am not sure which one is specific for Coldfusion.)
There's CFEclipse, a free, open-source Eclipse plug-in for working with CFML. And of course there's Adobe's ColdFusion Builder, a commercial product that works as either a plug-in for an existing Eclipse installation, or as a full stand-alone product (with Eclipse already baked in).
CFEclipse 1.3.6, the current stable version, works with Eclipse 3.4.x or 3.5.x. Here's the CFEclipse wiki.
The stated Eclipse versions required for ColdFusion Builder are 3.4.2 or 3.5. Here's Adobe's requirements page.
If you're using one of these as a plug-in and you don't need a lot of the other Eclipse features, the J2EE version of Eclipse is probably overkill (it's the biggest package). You can try out a more minimal Eclipse install, then update and add plug-ins as you need them. Try the Eclipse Platform Binary, for example.
There's also Adobe's ColdFusion Builder IDE specially created for this purpose. It proposes some features not available in CFEclipse, but not free (though there's a trial version available).
In addition to Ken's answer please note that you can already use preview builds of CFEclipse with latest Eclipse 3.6 Helios. I am using this configuration on daily basis and it is pretty stable and more efficient than previous version for me.
If you will expierience problems with preview builds, feel free to post them into the CFEclipse groups, developers usually react pretty quickly.
One more hint for you. Sometimes after installing the plugin via Add Sofware further updates do not work correcly. I've experienced this issue few times so it can be useful to know the solution.
To fix this check the Preferences > Install/Update > Available Software Sites. If needed entry missing -- create it manually using the same update URL as for installation.
Also there's an Eclipse-based version of Adobe CF manual available, see this help page for details.
Hope this helps.

choose a tool to create/maintain custom eclipse distrib

I would like to settle on a tool to create/maintain my custom eclipse distrib (starting with next 3.6). By studying previous questions main contenders seem:
Pulse
Yoxos
Google Workspace Mechanic: recently announced
doing it yourself in eclipse
Has anyone experiences in several of them and can comment on advantages etc?? My wishes are:
by 'distrib' I mean: plugins, settings & preferences...
be able to use the same eclipse setup in several workstations
MAYBE sharing with other members of the team
works across 3.5 and next 3.6: I don't know if it's possible. And anyway I would not object to customize the distrib once per new eclipse major release
Basically I was looking for the similar plugin or product. Pulse and Yoxos both supports plugin sync and workspace preference sync which is what i was mostly expecting.
Pulse
Pros
Pulse Explorer let you create new profile easily and share it
Eclipse installation folder is configurable and can be used as standalone installation for each profile
Cons
I felt sharing workspace preferences is complicated
Plugins repo search is slow
Replaced default update / install menus with Yoxos update
Very very buggy
Yoxos
Pros
I felt importing workspace preferences and save it to your online profile is easy
Search the plugins from public repositories is cool and very easy
Single eclipse installation is shared between all profiles
Cons
Yoxos Customizer is very complex (at least in my experience)
Custom added repositories are not
synced with server
Workspace Mechanic
Its very cool, more flexible plugin, but will sync only workspace preferences across eclipse installations
Personally I'm settled with Yoxos now.
Also refer
http://www.poweredbypulse.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29
Same plugins: I would just create update site with my plugins, or composite update site pointing to update sites with plugins you're interested in. Or you can simply use Eclipse Marketplace, which can create such update site for you from plugins you mark as favorite. Yoxos and Pulse should also work fine.
Same settings / preferences: Workspace Mechanic from Google may do the job for you. Beware: it is new project, which was just released into public. Disclaimer: I have no real experience with it :-) Pulse Team Edition should also be able to help (see previous disclaimer though).
I was in search for something like that myself (but more driven by the shared team approach), and I highly recommend the new Yoxos 5 Beta. It features synchronization of plugins and settings, while all your other suggestions only synchronize either plugins or settings, if I remember correctly.
In addition to your list, it might also be interesting to have your own mirrored update site, so its easier to control which version of which plugin can be installed at all (that also being more important in a corporate environment). See Eclipse help for details on how to create that mirrored site.
I think Sonatype Maven Studio leverages Maven to include Eclipse provisioning.

Prepared eclipse with famous plugins / known good configurations

I've just set up my machine from scratch and was wondering if there are any open available ready to use Eclipse versions (3.5 preferred) which have already installed famous (most used) plugins like subversion support, maven, pmd, checkstyle, findbugs etc. This would save me time setting it up myself.
thx,
kuku
Never really tried it myself, but this may ease it up for you: yoxos
And then there's myeclipseide but I think you pay for it.
For making sure everyone on our team works with the same set of plugins, we are using the notion of "group of plugins" in a Nexus Pro (so non-free) repository
Nexus Professional has support for Eclipse P2 repositories, and it can serve Eclipse plugin artifacts to tools that know how to interact with the Eclipse P2 repository format including Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede.
If you use the Eclipse IDE, you probably have a set of plugins which every single developer needs to install to get productive.
Using Nexus Professional, you can combine multiple Eclipse update sites into a single URL which your developers can use when they are configuring a development environment.
Using Nexus Professional as a single point-of-access between your developers and the Eclipse update sites they depend on allows you to manage and define a set of common Eclipse plugins in your organization's Eclipse development environment.