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There are three actions on the project: 1. Run project 2. Run project in debugger 3. Redeploy Linguistically, it is strange to have a redeploy action if there is no deploy action. I think you mean that you force a reload when executing, and it would be better to say that. "Redeploy" is not self-explanatory in this context.
Just a comment: The "reload" has different meaning in Tomcat's terminology. It means to reset the web application - classloader loads all classes againg and the application is started from scratch. The "redeploy" does something more - you know what. So calling the action "reload" may be also confusing ;-). "Restart" seems to be better for me.
To Marek: I don't agree with reasoning for Restart - the action still does something more than restart (same as redeploy does more). More, I think we shouldn't name IDE's project actions based on Tomcat's dictionary. To Ana: Do you have some suggestions? As I understand it, you're for something like 'Force project redeploy'. Am I right? Lowering priority - this really isn't a P2 issue.
I just wanted to express that the "reload" seems to me to be confusing. That's why I proposed the "restart". In spite of that I consider the current "Redeploy Project" as sufficient and quite self-explanatory.
Seems like the current state is OK.
What???!!! Did you confirm this with a writer or HIE?
We have done quite a bit of "theorizing" here but no efforts to validate our theories. Such as asking 3 engineers (new to web apps, 6 months experience, expert) "What do you think will happen when you choose this menu item." How about getting input from nbusers "What went through your head the first time you saw the Redeploy menu item without a "Deploy" menu item? What did you discern?" "What does restart mean to you?" "What does reload mean to you?"
This has probably already been thought of and rejected, but what about changing "Run project" to "Deploy project" (and "Run project in debugger" to "Deploy project in debugger")? Then "Redeploy" would make sense. My interpretation of the three actions is that they're counterparts, therefore I would expect the verb to be the same. I like the idea of getting input from nbusers.
Instead of wondering about what the current processes do and how best to describe them from the point of view of how the NetBeans developers would describe what the current implementation does, let's take another perspective and consider what the developer needs to do. For our future needs, let's note that the available selection does not meet real developers' needs (for example, you need to be able to deploy a module without trying to show a page in the browser, and you need to be able to restart the server). In short, don't worry about what our IDE and other IDEs do quite yet - check actual needs and how those developers would describe them. In the short term, we won't be able to add those extra actions that real developers need, but we will be able to assess the options we have and how they fare relative to that list. And we should be able to name them according to how the real developers describe the actions.
There's a lot to comment on here: User feedback - good idea, esp as Ana says we don't have time in the short term. Has there been any nbusers postings regarding this issue? Ana's comment on not being able to run a project without launching a browser: you can. There's a project properties checkbox. Restarting a server is a known user need which can be accessed from the Runtime tab, but this need to be redesigned. we haven't had the resources or priority to do this redesign afaik yet. Using the term "Run" v "Deploy" : We should keep with the standard word Run for consistency. Deploy should be considered a separate action if necessary. What user's want: This is different than what they get (and then they have their own workarounds). Do they really want to restart a server, redeploy an app? Not really - thir goal is to quickly see how their changes affect the app. Because of this, I'd argue that the ability for the IDE to deploy dynamically and silently as other IDEs do is something NB should look into. That's a tall order, so while that's getting filled or not, one stop gap measure is the offer a contextual menu called Deploy or Deployment off of any node within the project which has the various "needed" actions, such as "Deploy", "Redeploy", "Undeploy" on the nodes within the project that enable/disable accordingly.
Created attachment 15820 [details] ui spec on deploy context menu items.
Added UI spec for Deploy actions.
Ann, thanks for the ui spec. I'm setting target milestone to future, because we already had feature-freeze for D and we still have some unsolved issues. I actually started implementing it, but then realized some problems. I think the only real new action is undeploy (we do have redeploy currently, and deploy can be set by user in project customizer as mentioned above). But, we are not able to enable/disable the actions in reasonable time based on 'deployed' status of the project (server start could be needed for this). If we are not able to provide good support for undeploy, then the Deploy submenu doesn't make much sense to me - I think we should look for a different solution.
Created attachment 15993 [details] 2nd deploy spec
Attached an updated spec.. biggest changes: -removal of undeploy -deploy action will only do the deploy, not start server (making it different than Run Project) -reword "Redeploy Project" to "Redeploy & Run Project" to reflect the true nature of the action
What does the last spec solve? 1. How will the user be able to tell the difference between "Run Project" and "Deploy > Deploy Project"? Well, actually there is no difference when "Display Browser on Run" is not checked. Is this an improvement? 2. <quote> Redeploy & Run Project Always enabled. (Though ideally enabled only when project is currently running) It will undeploy the project from the server and do the "Deploy Project" action. </quote> We have Run action and Deploy action but "Redeploy & Run" actually does undeploy + Deploy Did I miss something? Please come up with better design if you want to change anything.
Changing version - this will apparently not be fixed in 4.0 as we are still waiting for a UI spec.
Fixed in 4.1 UI spec - see URL. Filed issue 54565 for being up-to-date with UI spec.
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