Instructions for running XNAT under Netbeans

[Simon Doran]

Dear All,

I mentioned in a post a month or two ago that I was aiming to get
XNAT running under NetBeans. This is the IDE we have most experience
with and it has been quite instructive to learn more about both
NetBeans and the structure of XNAT. If anyone else is interested in
doing development on this platform, I am uploading instructions on how
to go about it in a Word file create_XNAT_under_Netbeans.doc. It looks
a bit daunting, but when one understands what is happening, setting up
the XNAT project turns out to be fairly straightforward. I am
uploading a further file XNAT_libraries.xml, which will save a bit of
time for anyone wanting to have a go.

Any feedback would be gratefully appreciated.

Simon

[Dan@Mayo]

AWESOME!

I'm using Eclipse but I'm always eager to see how things work in
another environment. I look forward to seeing your instructions!
Thanks Simon!

Dan@Mayo

[Timothy Olsen]

Simon,

Thanks for your contribution. I'll look forward to taking a look at it.

Tim

[Timothy Olsen]

Simon,

Thanks for your thorough documentation here. I'm sure our other NetBeans users will find it useful.

I've never used netbeans with XNAT. I'm an Eclipse guy. Over the years my configuration of Eclipse has changed, as I've found new options. One very helpful one was to use JPDA to connect my IDE to tomcat. I think this is also available to NetBeans users.

Using this method, you start Tomcat with certain settings (JPDA) which allow remote tools to connect to it and debug. Once Tomcat is setup this way, it is very easy to configure Eclipse to connect to Tomcat (whether it is local or remote). I first used this method to debug a remote server. Now, I use it to debug local or remote servers. I don't use Eclipse to start and stop Tomcat at all.

Using this framework makes it a little more intuitive that your XNAT installation and your Tomcat webapp are two different things. Which means anytime you update your XNAT installation, you will need to run the update.sh script as well. This is the case for either setup method, but is a little more obvious when using the JPDA method.

I'm not sure if using JPDA in your setup would be easier, but it may be worth looking into.

http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ/Developing

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: xnat_di...@googlegroups.com [mailto:xnat_di...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Simon Doran
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:39 AM
To: xnat_discussion
Subject: Instructions for running XNAT under Netbeans

[Simon Doran]

Tim,

Thanks for the comments. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you are
right. Looking at the NetBeans documentation, there are several
different ways of coupling the webapp being debugged to Tomcat. I am
rather a newcomer to all this and the method I described here is just
the first one that I tried. Other ways of doing things will certainly
have their advantages, but one thing I liked about this was the
ability to isolate completely what was going on from any other
activity on the server. Running with an entirely separate instance of
Tomcat on a different port allows me to bring the server up and down
at will without affecting what anyone else is doing.

As you have done, I am sure that I will be changing my Netbeans
configuration as I find new options.

There's a lot to learn!

Best wishes and thanks for the supportive comments.

Simon