Filing an Enhancement request for NetBeans IDE 6.1

In my expectation driven development post I stumbled upon one limitation of NetBeans hints for Java. When I tried to create a new interface from a hint NetBeans only offered me a "Create Class" hint where I was expecting a Create Interface hint also. Eclipse has this hint and I am used to this Eclipse hint very much.

As an efficient NetBeaner I must file a report for this request in the NetBeans Issuezilla so someday this hint will get added to the IDE.

I started with searching for any other report already submitted regarding hints in Netbeans IDE. Any earlier report will help me understand what is done to submit a report for my requirement. Shall I submit it as a bug or an enhancement? All these questions may get answered in this search.

So in File an Issue page, in the "Search the 'summary' fields of open bugs" textbox I typed "hint" and clicked the search button.

All the reports having mention of hint word were shown to me. After some inspection I observer one interesting issue report.


I found one report http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=119619 which was very near to what I was about to submit. I learned from this report that I should file an enhancement report for my requirement. I also learned that the Component is java and subcomponent is hints for this type of report.

My new issue can be seen at http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=132711 where I have now filed my request for the enhancement in the hints for Create Class.

Now someday I can expect some development in this hint and will receive a mail when any changes happen to this issue report.

Logging issue found in Netbeans IDE 6.1 Beta

While working with the Eclipse Project Importer and Spring Framework 2.5 support in NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta I found one issue.

When we import an Eclipse project from an Eclipse workspace NetBeans makes a reference to the source folder of Eclipse project. This means that NetBeans makes a folder for the imported project but only to keep the nbproject folder, project.properties and build.xml files which are needed to build the project and are overall NetBeans project configuration files.

The actual Java source code remains on the same place where the Eclipse workspace is located. Now I added the Spring Framework 2.5 support library and tried to Add the configuration file in the project properties dialog box and selecting the Spring Framework node. This functionality does not work beacuse may be the dialog box is assuming the source code to be available in the same directory where the nbproject directory is located.


This is a possible bug in the release. Now if I can pass this information to the NetBeans development team then this bug may get assigned to some developer and we can get a better version of NetBeans next time with this bug resolved.

reporting bugs, issues, is very important part of the open source development concept. Users feedback always help in identification of bugs and also feedback from users gets considered in the future plan of the software. I decided to log this as an bug in the NetBeans IssueZilla.

NetBeans IssueZilla (based on Bugzilla) is an application and database for reporting and tracking bugs. When you enter a bug, Issuezilla assigns it to the appropriate developers and stores it in the database. You, or the developer assigned to the bug, can later modify bug parameters and update bug status.

To log a bug into the NetBeans IssueZilla you need to be registered with the netbeans.org site. This registration can be done from registration page.

First we need to choose a component name. For logging the issue about Spring support I will have to choose the "web" component. For NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta the NetBeans team has decided to keep the spring support in the web component as it is the responsibility of the web team.


After choosing the component the issue page is shown where we need to select version which I chose 6.1 and subcomponent which chose spring
Then I typed all the description of the found bug into the description area of the bug page. I wrote all the steps involved to reproduce this bug so a developer can check the bug by reproducing the bug on workstation. Ideally I shall also attach the project files I used to identify this bug. The issue page says that the facility for attaching a file will be provided after the bug is logged.

Once my bug was logged I got the link to attach a file. I created a ZIP file for the project I used to check this bug and attached it to the bug.
There is a limit of 1MB for the attachment but we usually attach code samples which are small in size.
My bug number is 131070 and you can see the bug in the NetBeans IssueZilla at http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=131070

I got an email for the submitted bug and I was also added to the tracking list of this bug so whenever someone updates this bug I will get an email notifying me about the updates.

with regards
Tushar