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JMRI Code: Building with Apache NetBeans

Introduction

Apache NetBeans makes a great platform for working with JMRI. The JMRI code is set up to work with Apache NetBeans with almost no additional setup.

Apache NetBeans is a very powerful Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which can make working with the JMRI code pretty easy. But it takes a little getting used to, and reading the tutorials will be helpful.

Installation

  1. Download and install a Java 8 or newer Java Development Kit (JDK) (It is recommended to use a package manager if possible to ensure security updates can be automatically installed)

  2. Download Apache NetBeans from netbeans.apache.org (It is recommended to use a package manager if possible to ensure security updates can be automatically installed)

  3. Run the Apache NetBeans installer

Linux

Apache NetBeans can also be installed as a snap package for Linux.

macOS

Apache NetBeans and the Java 8 JDK can be installed using Homebrew from the terminal:

brew install --cask  openjdk@11 netbeans

Windows

Note

Due to different handling of Line Endings characters (LF / CR LF) between Windows and other systems - namely Unix and OS X (see Handling Line Ends) - it is of the utmost importance that all Windows users adopt the following settings for their development environment. This is absolutely required so that Git can track individual changes on files that you commit.

If you don’t follow these instructions, you’ll mess up the line endings in the files you commit, which will in turn make their revision history much harder to access. Files in this condition will not be accepted as pull requests.

As a first step, as JMRI has adopted LF as a convention for Line Endings, it is required to set the core.autocrlf setting to true (see "Dealing with line endings" on GitHub Help)
Important

You must install and configure the "Change Line Endings on Save" plugin before using Git via Apache NetBeans.

Change Line Endings on Save Plugin

Installation

  1. Choose Tools › Plugins

  2. Click Settings

  3. Select Netbeans Plugin Portal and ensure it is active

  4. Click Available Plugins

  5. Select Change Line Endings on Save

  6. Click Install

  7. Follow the prompts to complete installation

  8. Restart Apache NetBeans when prompted

Configuration

Configuration Window

  1. Choose Tools › Options

  2. Click Editor

  3. Click Line Endings

  4. Select Enable adjusting the line endings

  5. Choose Unix (LF) from the popup menu

  6. To be prompted before line endings are adjusted, select Show confirmation dialog before adjusting the line endings

  7. Click OK You can check that the plug-in is properly installed by going to go to Tools > Plugins > Installed, where you should see something like this (versions might differ):

Using Apache NetBeans with JMRI’s Git Code Repository

GitHub provides JMRI’s code repository using the Git tool. For more information on how JMRI uses Git, see the JMRI Help on Getting the code via Git and Git FAQ.

Once set up, Apache NetBeans provides built-in support for using Git.

For more information on Git and Apache NetBeans, see the NetBeans Git help page

Checking out code

In Apache NetBeans, under the "Team" menu, select Git, then Clone Repository. Enter the https://github.com/JMRI/JMRI.git repository URL from the JMRI GitHub page on the Apache NetBeans form under "Repository URL". We recommend that you also enter your GitHub user name and password on the form, so we can attribute your contributions to you later. Click "Next". Make sure that the "master*" box is checked to pull down the main version of the code. Click "Next", and then click "Finish".

It’ll take a long time to pull down a copy of the code (note the progress bar in the lower right), but then you’re good to go.

Local Commits

When using Git, the "commit" operation is local to your computer. It doesn’t make any changes to the main JMRI repository.

You’re encouraged to commit often, so that your changes are safely stored away from your working directory. Having each small change separately recorded can be incredibly helpful later on if you have to track down where a problem was introduced.

Updating the code from Git

From time to time, you should update your local copy of the code to match the current "HEAD" of the main JMRI Git repository contents. The basic process is to pull the most recent copies from the main JMRI repository, doing any merging that’s needed if you’ve made conflicting changes, and then pushing that up to your own GitHub repository.

To do this, use the Apache NetBeans [Team] → [Remote] → [Pull from Upstream] menu choice. Tell Apache NetBeans to pull from the "github" remote you defined above.

You may also update a single file or the contents of a folder, by right-clicking on an item in the "Files" window, then selecting [Git] → [Remote] → [Pull from Upstream].

Creating a Pull Request

A "Pull Request" (PR) is an easy way to gather all your changes, even if they span multiple files, into something that you can then submit for inclusion in the main JMRI repository.

First, you need to set up a GitHub account and your own repository.

This gives you your own repository, which you can then work with freely.

Next, push the changes up to your repository. (Anybody can push to their own repository, but most people don’t have permission to directly modify the main JMRI repository; that’s why the pull request is needed) To do this:

  • Use the Apache NetBeans [Team] > [Remote] > [Push...] menu choice. (If you try to use the "Push to Upstream" choice, it will try to write back to the main repository, and will fail.)

  • Click on Specify Git Repository, and enter the URL for your own repository, e.g.
    https://github.com/<yourname>/JMRI.git

  • Then click next.

  • Apache NetBeans will check with the repository, and show an indication of branches to push e.g. "master → master" Check the appropriate box to for the branch you’ve been working on.

  • Click Next and Finish. Netbeans will do the actual push to your repository.

You can repeat this as many times as you’d like as you’re working on your changes. Each time, the most recent changes are pushed up and made available.

Finally, when your change is ready to submit, go to the GitHub website to fill out and submit a pull request.

Eventually, somebody will look at the pull request and decide whether to merge it in. Sometimes they’ll ask for additional changes. In that case, you can update the pull request by just pushing new changes to your repository, where they’ll automatically be picked up.

Building and running JMRI

Tip
Ensure your computer is connected to the internet the first time you build, test, or run JMRI after checking out a new copy of JMRI from GitHub to allow any potentially missing external dependencies or build tools to be automatically downloaded.

Prime

Project warnings The first time you open the JMRI project in Apache NetBeans, a warning icon will be shown on the project. This warning indicates Apache NetBeans has a problem with the project. Usually the first time warning indicates that build artifacts are missing.

To resolve this problem:

  1. Select the JMRI project

  2. Choose shortcut menu › Resolve Project Problems… (the shortcut menu is usually opened by right-clicking on the project) Show example...

  3. Resolve Project Problems dialog

    Click Resolve...

  4. Click Close once the warning icon changes to an OK icon

Note
You may also see an error icon if using a JDK version greater than 8 due to changes in how Java interacts with macOS in JDK versions 9 or newer.

Build

To build JMRI, choose Run › Build Project (JMRI) or Run › Clean and Build Project (JMRI).

Tip
To build only the JMRI Java source code, run the maven lifecycle phase compile.

Run an Application

Select Main Class for Execution dialog To run a JMRI application, choose Run › Run Project (JMRI) or click the Run icon in the tool bar. You will be prompted for the JMRI main class to run the first time you run the project.

The JMRI applications are launched from the main classes:

DecoderPro

apps.DecoderPro.DecoderPro

PanelPro

apps.PanelPro.PanelPro

SoundPro

apps.SoundPro.SoundPro

Tip
A new JMRI checkout should build cleanly. If not, please check with the developers group or project for help.

Debug an Application

To debug a JMRI application, choose Debug › Debug Project (JMRI) or click the Debug icon in the tool bar. You will be prompted for the JMRI main class to debug the first time you run the project.

Profile an Application

To profile a JMRI application, choose Profile › Profile Project (JMRI) or click the Profile icon in the tool bar. You will be prompted for the JMRI main class to profile the first time you run the project.

Making a Jar File

Most of the code in a normal JMRI installation lives in a file called jmri.jar. If you want to replace this with your updated version, you need to create a new jmri.jar file from your modified code.

To do this, ctrl-click (or right-click) on the name of the "JMRI" project in the "Projects" window. This will open a pop-up menu, on which you’ll find "Make Jar File". Select that, and a new jmri.jar file will be produced in the project’s main directory.

Alternately, from the "Files" window, right-click on the build.xml file, and select "Run Target", then "jar".

Making a release package for Windows using NSIS

It is possible for Apache NetBeans users to create a release package for use on the Windows platform. This requires installation of the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS), which can be downloaded from the NSIS project website on SourceForge.

Once NSIS is installed on the computer, it is necessary to create a file called local.properties in the same directory as JMRI's build.xml file. This file is specifically not checked in via GitHub, so that your machine-specific tool installation paths are not checked in to GitHub. Create the file, and add a variable definition with the correct path to the directory which includes the NSIS executable, such as:

nsis.home=C:/Program Files (x86)/NSIS/

or

nsis.home=/opt/nsis/nsis-2.46/

Note: Make sure the trailing / is present.

With the NSIS package installed to your computer, and build.xml properly modified, the Windows package may be created by running the "package-windows" ant target in build.xml.

Using Apache NetBeans XML tools

Apache NetBeans has nice tools for working with XML files, including editing and validating them. JMRI uses XInclude to include XML fragments in other XML files via URLs to the JMRI website. JMRI programs convert these at run time to local file references; however Apache NetBeans must be configured to do this if you want to edit JMRI XML files while offline.

To configure Apache NetBeans to allow offline XML editing:

  1. Choose Tools › DTDs and XML Schemas

  2. Click Add Catalog...

  3. Select the Catalog Type OASIS Catalog Resolver

  4. Click Browse...

  5. Navigate to /path-to-your-JMRI-project/xml/catalog.xml

  6. Click OK

  7. Click OK

  8. Click Close

Note
the XML catalog location is not project specific, so if you are working on multiple JMRI projects, whichever project you add the catalog from will be used, not the current project.

Running SpotBugs

The SpotBugs tool is a static code analysis tool which examines JAVA source code for common coding issues.

To run the SpotBugs tool on JMRI code, execute the maven goal spotbugs:check which is defined in pom.xml. Within Apache NetBeans this can be accomplished by clicking JMRI in the Projects pane and then clicking "spotbugs check" in the Navigator pane. When SpotBugs completes, the Apache NetBeans Output window will show the SpotBugs results.

Loading a Specific Branch from GitHub

The process for building from a branch (i.e. the one where someone has put a change) is a bit different from the standard instructions. (The following is NetBeans 8.2, but it doesn’t vary with versions much)

  • Under "Team" → "Remote" select "Fetch" (not Fetch from Upstream)
    image

  • Fill out the form to specify the correct user’s repository (After the 1st time you do this, you’ll be able to select by name in the top choice)
    image

  • On the next screen to select a branch, you can either select all of them (there’s a button) or find and select just the name of the branch that holds the desired change:
    image

  • Click "Finish"

At this point, you’ve pulled my changes onto your local machine, but you’re not using them yet. To have those files appear locally for Apache NetBeans to build:

  • Back on the main menu, select "Team" → "Checkout" → "Checkout Revision...". On the window you get, click "Select":
    image

  • In the upper left, find the imported branch you want, which in the example is "bobjacobsen/ast-clock-power-bit". Either click to highlight (show) and then click "Select", or just double-click on it. (Don’t worry about the upper right or the lower box, they’ll be automatically set right)
    image

  • Back on the "Checkout Revision..." window, make sure the "Checkout as New Branch" is not checked, and then click "Checkout"

Now you’ve got a copy of my changes as your checked-out source. You should do a "Clean and Build Project" to make sure that you get a consistent compilation, and then you should be able to run it.

Important
When you want to get back to the standard JMRI version, from the main repository, you need to check out the master branch. The process is similar, and simpler. Choose Team › Checkout › Checkout Revision..., type master in the Checkout Selected Revision box, and click Checkout