I'm using Netbeans for my Java development, and every time I download a project that has been developed using other IDE, I can't run the project because of errors.
Is there any way to open regular people's projects easily without headache. Note : the project am trying to open is not an Eclipse project, so I can't use the Eclipse importer.
And usually what are Java developers using for development?
Most Java developers are split between Eclipse , IntelliJ Idea and NetBeans. NetBeans is capable of opening Eclipse projects and Idea can export to Eclipse. So this should solve most problems.
Another way is to check if you project is using Maven or a similar model. Generally there are plugins for Netbeans that can handle import from this sort of sources.
build.xml file.I've had some luck using File > New Project… > Java > Java Project with Existing Sources, which "Imports an existing Java application into a standard IDE project. The Java application can have multiple source folders. Standard projects use an IDE-generated Ant build script to build, run, and debug your project." Conveniently, the generated script includes targets that can be overridden to alter the build process, as seen here.
We have several projects with existing ant build scripts and all I want is to have NetBeans as my code editor ...so far. We aim for that the projects are independent of IDE as we have been used to just use emacs and ant for coding/building, which means that independant on platform you should be able to checkout the code and just build it no matter if it is within an IDE or just a shell/"DOS prompt". If you have projects like that use the "Java Free-Form project" and add all jars that you have defined in build script to also be included in Netbeans CLASSPATH.
This type of project will use your ant scripts for everything and will still work even if someone in your project prefer to use other coding environment.
Hope this can help
