Contributing to the NetBeans Code Base

Although Sun Microsystems is the major contributer behind the NetBeans open-source project, community developers are a major part of what makes the NetBeans project better.

There are three ways you can contribute to the NetBeans code base (both to the IDE and Platform):

• Contribute new features to the NetBeans code base. — Join the NetDEV team!
• Contribute patches to the NetBeans code base. — Join the NetFIX team!
• Build your own modules. — Make plugins available to the community!

We recommened you join a community or developer mailing list that you are interested in, and introduce yourself to the NetBeans community. Welcome!

Working with the NetBeans Sources

The NetBeans sources are maintained in a Mercurial repository on netbeans.org. If you want to contribute to the NetBeans source code base directly, you can check them outi, and also get developer check-in access. If you are just building plug-in modules for NetBeans IDE, you do not need to check out the sources. The latest release of NetBeans IDE contains all of the Platform libraries you need to develop modules.

• Getting the sources
• Getting mercurial push access
• Building the sources
• Commit guidelines

Building on Top of the NetBeans Platform

• NetBeans Module Quickstart Guide
• All NetBeans Platform Tutorials
• NetBeans API documentation
• NetBeans Platform FAQs

Beta Testing and Backwards Compatibility

Interested in Beta testing development builds? Join the NetBeans Community Acceptance (NetCAT) program!

Another way you can help improve the NetBeans code base is by testing new releases of the NetBeans Platform and IDE for backwards compatibility with your modules or your Platform based applications.