Wednesday June 13, 2007
Wednesday June 13, 2007
Tip of the Day Functionality for NetBeans Platform Applications
Thanks to R.J. Lorimer's excellent Javalobby article on the SwingLabs project's JXTipOfTheDay (click here to read it), I've created a simple module that provides this functionality for NetBeans IDE:
The interesting bit is that the tips are defined in the application's user directory, in a properties file, which means that you can change the tips whenever you feel like it. So you're not locked into the tips provided by the module. Also, thanks to this snippet in the layer.xml file...
<folder name="Favorites">
<file name="tipsproperties.shadow">
<attr name="originalFile" stringvalue="Preferences/tips.properties"/>
<attr name="originalFileSystem" stringvalue="SystemFileSystem"/>
</file>
</folder>
...the tips properties file is automatically available in the Favorites window, so that you can use the Properties Editor to add/modify the tips:
I've tried the same module in other applications on the NetBeans Platform and, as one might expect, it works there too. I'd make the module available on the Plugin Portal, but I don't know (and can't find) the SwingLabs licensing conditions. By the way, because of usage of the NbPreferences API, the module only works from 6.0 onwards.
But, considering the fact that there are now several new/changed keyboard shortcuts, because of the many 6.0 improvements, isn't this a cool way to learn them, one by one? Whenever the IDE starts, you see a new tip. You can also call up the dialog from a menu item, so that you can scroll through all the available tips whenever you want them. And, as pointed out above, you can delete all the tips, if you want, and then just add your own!
Jun 13 2007, 06:52:43 AM PDT Permalink
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