Creating NetBeans plugins

NetBeans is developed as a very modular IDE with all of the functionality provided by different modules or plugins. As mentioned previously, the majority of the functionality required for day-to-day use of the IDE is already provided with NetBeans, however, we can create additional functionality by creating new plugins. These plugins can then be installed into NetBeans via the Update Center.

To create a new NetBeans plugin, we need to invoke the New Project wizard and select the Module project type from within the NetBeans Modules category.

On the Name and Location page of the New Module wizard, we must specify the standard attributes of a NetBeans project: Project Name, Project Location, and Project Folder. We then have the choice of specifying whether the module is standalone or whether it should be added to a module suite.

A standalone module is a single plugin that can be installed into either the NetBeans IDE or into a NetBeans Platform application (we'll learn...