Re-using code

So now I have an applet which works (and works jolly well, though I say so myself), but the code has been assigned to the wrong package, and I'd like to start again, with everything assigned to an appropriate package, but I don't want to fiddle around with the graphics on the JFrame getting all the shapes sizes and fonts right again. So I want to reassign the classes I've already created to the right package.

Coming from a Microsoft background, I think in terms of exporting files to a package, and I look in the file menu for something resembling export or import. There is something for project groups, but nothing about assigning files to packages or importing or exporting. Next I look in tools. Maybe there is a package assignation tool? No luck there. Options? I am clutching at straws now.

So I scan through every menu, and find nothing. Maybe if I right click on the class file icon there will be a context menu item about assigning the class to a package. But no, I can only open, copy or paste. There is an idea. Let's copy it into a new project. Hmm that seemed to work. At any rate the class has attached itself to the new project tree. I think I'll do that for the other class in the original project.

And I also remember noticing in the context menu for the project there is a create new package option. I'll try that. I'll call it JHipptest. And now I'll try dragging the pasted classes in to the new package. Hmm that seemed to work. But I can't open them. I know, let's copy and paste the source code from the original project into the new package. Now let's have a look at the code, and Yes! very cleverly NetBeans has added "package JHipptest;" as a first line in the source code.

I have spent weeks and months researching this in fora, NetBeans help, and the tutorial to no avail. It reminds me of when I first used a Mac. I had to ring a technician to ask how to delete a file. There was no right mouse button, and nothing about file deletion in the menus. I felt a real fool when I was told I just had to drag the file to the Trash. Maybe NetBeans was written by an old Mac user.

In summary, it is not a disaster if you forget to assign your class to an appropriate package when you first create the source code in NetBeans. You simply add a package to your project, and then drag your source file to the package node in the project explorer pane. And you don't need to start a new project as I did - you can do it all in the original project. On the other hand, if you want to use existing code in a completely new project, it is simply a matter of copying and pasting the source files in the project explorer pane.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A few notes on JavaScript

I am one the 99% of the world who has long nursed the misconception that JavaScript has something to do with Java. And why not? The name sort of implies it. It was only after I searched without success on the Java Tutorial site for some mention of JavaScript that I stumbled across the knowledge that JavaScript was in fact developed by Netscape, under the name LiveScript. Armed with that knowledge, it is not surprising to find the best reference information on Mozilla site. According to Wikipedia , the nonsensical name choice had something to do with Netscape wanting to cash in on the popularity and cachet of Java, and Sun wanting support for Java technology in the then popular Netscape browser. For a while only the Netscape family of browsers supported JavaScript. Microsoft later produced what it calls JScript to run in its browser. JScript is similar but not identical to Javascript. According to Foldoc JavaScript runs a hundred times slower than C , and ten
Read more

Forum Comments on Java Applets

It is so long since I last posted on the once was Sun/Java now is Oracle developer forum my account seems to have been ditched. While I wait to have it resurrected I've done a little searching in the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) forum using the search term "Applet". My first search, using the default 3 month period, yielded nothing. No one had posted anything about or even mentioned Applets in the last three months. So either they are very easy to use and work very well, so hardly anyone has any problems with them, or maybe ... not very many people use them at all. My stomach was beginning to churn a bit, when I extended the search period to the current year - and with good reason. Somebody, a little bit like me I think, had written a game in an applet, and wanted to record top scores in a database. He described his connection problem in this thread , and the first reply began: Doing JDBC calls from an Applet is such a bad idea that I am glad y
Read more

Creating a Custom Swing Component

Image
I always return to my blog when I'm stuck, and I'm stuck right now. I want to create a custom Swing component. Specifically, I want something like a JProgressBar , with the following changes: In place of a flat Foreground color, I want a rainbow spectrum, showing only the red range for low Values, and the whole spectrum for values close to the Maximum value; Instead of a rectangular box, I want the progress "bar" to take the shape of a normal, or Gaussian, distribution curve; I want progress to be displayed by the area under the curve, rather than by a simple linear scale along the x axis. It's not that there isn't stuff out there. I have five tabs open in my browser, specifically addressing the creation of custom components in Swing, as well as the source code for the JProgressBar . It is that, like everything to do with Java, it is bloody difficult to read. I shall begin from the horse's mouth as it were, with an article on the Java
Read more