When updating the mojo.codehaus.org svn repository, I noticed there's a new maven plugin in the sandbox with a cool name: "IANAL Maven Plugin" . I've opened the project in NetBeans to see what the plugin does. However the plugin seems to be written in Groovy, not Java. So I installed the latest Groovy support in NetBeans from the update center. To get the right editor colorings and everything. And also to figure if it works with Maven based projects. It worked. Sort of. I got a few red underlines meaning the classpath was not right. An email exchange with the Groovy support devs confirmed my own thoughts that the problem is in the fact that groovy sources are in src/main/groovy folder in Maven projects and this folder is missing on project's sourcepath. So I added it.
The results is here . No red lines in the editor, ready for coding. There's still room for improvement though. Ideally the Groovy sources would appear in a separate Source node under the project's node. Please note that it will only work in the upcoming 3.1 version of Maven support. Coming soon.

I've just finished installing the new Powerpack of Mandriva 2008.1 Spring linux distribution. When I browsed the available software I discovered this little gem.

I couldn't resist installing it even though it's only 6.0 and as a NetBeans IDE developer I'm using the latest daily builds mostly. For my daily work as least, sometimes I need to test on older versions though.

Maven also comes prepackaged but it was even older. 2.0.4 I think, I'll rather stick to the latest 2.0.9 release.

It's great to see that many public Maven2 remote repositories are providing the index of the repository now. I've just figured Terracotta.org has used the the Nexus command line tool to create such index. Of course I have my own selfish reasons to be happy about it.

The 3.1 (coming soon) version of Maven integration for NetBeans is using these indexes to greatly enhance the user experience within the IDE. Let's preview some of the places that benefit from the indexing data.

First we need to add the Terracotta.org repository to the list of known repositories.

That's done in the Maven Repositories top level window. You can open it from Windows menu.

To verify we added the correct thing, let's expand the root node of the new repository and see what content we have there.

You can easily drill down from groupIds to artifactIds to versions. There you can immediately add the artifact to your projects or (if the metadata is present) view project website, file a bug or checkout the sources.

Browsing is cool but it gets boring after a while. The true integration puts the metadata from the index right at your fingertips when you need it.

For example when creating a new project from archetype

or in the editor for your poject's POM file when you need to check what dependencies or maven plugins are available and in what versions.

The new 3.1 version of Mevenide is not 100% ready for release, however if you want to test drive the beta quality code, it's fairly easy to setup. Download the latest NBM binaries from the NetBeans.org continuous integration machine and install them through the Tools/Plugins dialog. And while you are in testing mode, you should check it in the NetBeans 6.1 Beta build

Enjoy

Milos