Usage

To use this plugin, do the following steps:

• Open a shell
• Change the shell directory to the project directory
• Call Maven with the goal netbeans-freeform:generate-netbeans-project
• Open your Netbeans IDE
• Open the directory of the project using Open Project and selecting the directory of the project

When the Netbeans project for your Maven project is opened, you have access to the project view that shows:

• The pom.xml of your project
• The Ant script used by Netbeans to call Maven
• The source packages of your project

With a right click on the project name in the project view to call the basic goals. By default:

• "Build Project" is mapped to "package"
• "Clean Project" is mapped to "clean:clean"
• "Clean and Build Project" is mapped to " clean:clean" then "package"
• "Generate Javadoc for Project" is mapped to "site:site"
• "Run Project" is mapped to "install"
• "Test Project" is mapped to "test"

Then some custom goals are visible:

• "jalopy" is mapped to "jalopy" anticipating the creation of the Jalopy plugin
• "assembly" is mapped to "assembly:assembly"
• "refresh-project" is mapped to "netbeans-freeform:generate-netbeans-project"

Configure the pom.xml file as follow if needed :

Note: none of the following property configuration is required. Even the plugin configuration may be omitted.

<project>
  ...
    <build>
      ...
      <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
          <artifactId>netbeans-freeform-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <configuration>
            <outputDirectory>/path/to/output/directory</outputDirectory>
            <additionalGoals>plugin:xdoc site:site, projecthelp:active-profiles</additionalGoals>
            <additionalFiles>src/main/mdo/FreeformProject.mdo</additionalFiles>
            <additionalFolders>src/test/projects, src/site, target</additionalFolders>
          </configuration>
        </plugin>
        ...
      </plugins>
      ...
    </build>
  ...
</project>

As an alternative and if all your projects have common goals files or folders, you can add the following in your settings.xml:

<settings>
  ...
  <profiles>
    ...
    <profile>
      <id>freeform-commons</id>
      <properties>
        <freeform.outputDirectory>/path/to/output/directory</freeform.outputDirectory>
        <freeform.additionalGoals>plugin:xdoc site:site, projecthelp:active-profiles</freeform.additionalGoals>
        <freeform.additionalFiles>src/main/mdo/FreeformProject.mdo</freeform.additionalFiles>
        <freeform.additionalFolders>src/test/projects, src/site, target</freeform.additionalFolders>
      </properties>
    </profile>
    ...
  </profiles>
  ...
  <activeProfiles>
    ...
    <activeProfile>freeform-commons</activeProfile>
    ...
  </activeProfiles>
  ...
</settings>

The explaination of the configuration or properties is:

• additionalGoals or freeform.additionalGoals is a list of goals to add in the project context menu in Netbeans and in the mavencall.xml file. The list is a String using ',' as the separator. Multiple Maven goals or lifecycle phases may be called with a space character between them. "plugin:xdoc site:site,projecthelp:activate-profiles" will add 2 menu items/Ant targets. The first call Maven with the goals "plugin:xdoc site:site" and the second with the goal "projecthelp:activate-profiles".
• additionalFiles or freeform.additionalFiles is a list of files to add in the project view in Netbeans. The list is a String using ',' as the seperator. "src/main/mdo/FreeformProject.mdo" will add one file named "FreeformProject.mdo".
• additionalFolders or freeform.additionalFolders is a list of folders to add in the project view int Netbeans after any additional file. The list is a String using ',' as the separator. "src/test/projects, src/site" will add two folders named "projects" and "site".
• outputDirectory or freeform.outputDirectory is the absolute path to the directory where the 'nbproject' folder will be created. The Netbeans' project view will see the files and folder by using an Ant property.