Developers in search of an integrated development environment (IDE) that offers an opportunity for working as part of a team should have a look at A Guide to Using NetBeans IDE with Kenai Projects. This tutorial demonstrates how the collaborative tools in the IDE enable users to take advantage of the services offered by the Kenai.com infrastructure and facilitate communication and sharing among developers who are working on a project hosted on Kenai.com. The combination of Kenai services and the integrated support in NetBeans IDE provides a complete development environment.

The tutorial points out that developers who are collaborating on a project require a set of tools and an infrastructure that can help them stay connected to each other as they work together as a team. Team members need to not only be able to share information and communicate with each other, but also to share sources as well. How they share information depends on the type of information they need to share.

While not all team members will use the same tools, communication among members can be simplified when the infrastructure and tools are integrated. Some members will be developers, but there might also be people responsible for designing the user interface, testing quality, writing documentation, managing the build cycle, etc., each with different requirements and preferences. Kenai provides a scalable, flexible platform for development that can grow as the project grows. As the nature of the project and the composition of the project team evolve and change, these details need to be captured and communicated. Kenai tools, such as issue trackers and wiki pages, are useful for capturing this type of information.

Creating a project on Kenai, involves more than creating just a version-controlled repository for source code. For each project, Kenai provides resources and services that are important when working on a project, especially when there are many people collaborating on a project. The NetBeans IDE provides integrated support for the following collaborative tools and services offered by Kenai:

Version Control Systems

• Integrated support for version control systems help developers manage the history of file revisions. NetBeans IDE provides integrated support for Subversion, Mercurial and CVS. Subversion, Mercurial and Git are offered as source code management options for Kenai projects.

Issue Tracking

• An issue tracking system enables developers and users to report and track issues associated with a project and provides a valuable feedback mechanism for team members. The integration of issue tracking systems in the IDE enables developers to find, view and resolve project issues from within the IDE. NetBeans IDE provides integrated support for Bugzilla and JIRA. Bugzilla and JIRA are offered as issue tracking options for Kenai projects.

Communication, Instant Messaging and Notifications

• Each project created with the IDE has a chat room enabled. Project members can participate in the project's chat room and have private chats with each other. Chat enables members to exchange messages and links from within the IDE. The IDE also notifies users when there are changes to the project and new messages, for example, when there are changes to the repository.

In the section of the tutorial on setting up a project, readers are given information on the registration process with Kenai.com and on the use of the wizards within the IDE that enable users to easily create a Kenai project and set up an issue tracker and a version-controlled repository for the project's sources. When you create a new Kenai project, the project's chat room, mailing lists, wiki page and downloads area are created and configured automatically.

Kenai.com has information on project features, managing a project, profile settings and a demo on "Managing Your Kenai Projects."

The tutorial takes readers step-by-step through the creation of a project on Kenai, which can be done from within the IDE. These steps include:

• Registering as a user on Kenai.com.
• Logging in to Kenai in the NetBeans IDE using your Kenai username.
• Choosing Tools > Kenai > New Kenai Project from the main menu.
• Specifying the project's details and options in the New Kenai Project wizard

There are also instructions on joining an already established project, a simpler process, which entails:

• Registering as a user on Kenai.com
• Locating a project of interest
• Clicking "Bookmark this Project" on the project's home page on Kenai

Once logged in to Kenai in the IDE, projects joined or created are listed under My Projects in the Kenai Dashboard, which provides a project overview to easily view project details, see the number of unread messages in project chat rooms and view issues. A further section of the tutorial deals with checking out sources.

A lengthy section of the tutorial deals with working together as a team and includes information on intra-project communication, illustrating such procedures as sending links to files and specific lines in files via chat, as well as how members online at any given moment can click the link to open a file to lines cited in a message.

A useful feature of the IDE is notifications capability to help avoid source code conflicts. The IDE warns if the file being edited is not the most recent version due to a recent change in the repository. Links in the notification lead to a view of the revision information.

The tutorial points out that integration of the project's issue tracker with the project's version control system enables updating and resolving issues in the Commit dialog box as part of the commit process. The IDE can attach the commit messages to an issue. Messages with links to the changes can also automatically be sent to the project's chat room.

More Information

Opening a Kenai Project in NetBeans IDE

Creating a Kenai Project in NetBeans IDE

Working with Issue Tracking in NetBeans IDE

Guided Tour of Subversion

General Java Development Learning Trail

Details on NetBeans 6.8

NetBeans IDE 6.8 Full Support to Latest Java Technologies [...read more...]

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