What are the basic things I should know about NetBeans architecture to get started?
The most important thing is to know what you are trying to do clearly, so you can find what you need to get started quickly. Here are some basic NetBeans factoids which will either answer some questions or whet your appetite for more information: • A module is a JAR file with some special manifest entries. The NetBeans IDE (5.0 and up) has lots of support for building modules. • Modules usually affect the system by putting entries in an XML file inside their JAR, which the system reads. • You can add to, remove from, change or completely remove menus from the main window, toolbars and other things from a module • To show your own tabs in the main window, you will want to subclass TopComponent • The windowing system provides facilities for tracking selection, and actions can be made sensitive to selection. Selection typically centers around use of Nodes; it is also possible to have context sensitive actions without Nodes. • It is possible to build tree and other views of objects very qu
