How to add a new library?

Do you want to integrate another third-party library that might be shared among several NetBeans modules? This is right place to host it. The following instructions should explain how.

First you need to make sure you have permission to host the library on netbeans.org at all. Ask on nbdiscuss@netbeans.org if you are not sure.

The pseudo-module should be an autoload module containing just a Bundle.properties to localize the module display name and other human-visible text strings, and its manifest should contain a Class-Path entry pointing to the actual library:

    Class-Path: ext/qwerty-x.y.z.jar

There is no hard requirement as to which package such a module should be placed in. It is however recommended that pseudo-modules use org.netbeans.libs, e.g. org.netbeans.libs.qwerty for a Qwerty library. This package should contain the Bundle.properties file and can serve as the module's code name base.

There are templates for newly created modules. Each module is placed in its own subdirectory beneath the libs top-level directory, e.g. libs/qwerty. Each module should have the following structure:

    libs/qwerty/src/org/netbeans/libs/qwerty/Bundle.properties
    libs/qwerty/build.xml
    libs/qwerty/manifest.mf
    libs/qwerty/.cvsignore

You can copy libs/www/template to libs/qwerty (libs/www/template/Bundle.properties to libs/qwerty/src/org/netbeans/libs/qwerty/Bundle.properties) and simply replace all occurrences of __NAME__ by the real name of library, qwerty in our example. Also __VERSION__ by the current version and __PACKAGES__ by any API packages it exports.

To libs/public.properties you will add specification and implementation versions which are used in your build.xml and substituted in manifest.mf, e.g.:

    libs.qwerty.specification.version=x.y
    libs.qwerty.implementation.version=x.y.z
    libs.qwerty.jar.path=libs/external/qwerty-x.y.z.jar

And to libs/build.xml you will add the module name into the list of all hosted submodules, e.g.:

    <property name="sub-modules" value="xerces, qwerty"/>