This Bugzilla instance is a read-only archive of historic NetBeans bug reports. To report a bug in NetBeans please follow the project's instructions for reporting issues.
Low hanging fruit!!! Please change the various templates (Java Class, Java Interface, .... etc... ALL templates!) to containg the following comment in the header: To change this template, go to Tools | Options, and locate the template under "Source Creation and Management". Right click on the template and choose open. Edit in the editor and save. New users do not discover this. I just showed somebody who had used NetBeans for a couple of years how to do it. Having it appear in the text itself makes it immediately obvious, and I suspect most people will want to customize the default template created anyway. Note that some of NetBeans' competitors also does this. Finally, I assume i18n is not a concern (or not a new concern) since these templates already contain English text.
I agree, let's change this before 4.1 release if possible (at least for java classes). However I suggest shorter text, like "To change this template go to Tools | Options | Source Creation and Management.". It will appear in a lot of files so we should keep it as short as possible IMO.
Tor has a good point with the fact that users may not find out they have to right-click on the settings node to open the template. So we'll probably have to keep the longer text. Thus ignore my previous comment about shorter text.
Attached is a diff that changes templates in java and java/project (the standard Java templates for Class, Interface, Enum, etc.) This change breaks the commit validation - so it should be commited together with a fix to commit validation. I've added jskrivanek on a CC.
Created attachment 20825 [details] Diff for java templated.
This patch will probably also break many qa-functinal tests. At least functional tests in java module. CCing Eman.
Just comment <module name="ide" testtypes="qa-functional" attributes="commit"/> in xtest/instance/master-config.xml. I will fix it afterwards.
I suggest just slightly more explicit text: "To change this template, choose Tools | Options and locate the template under the Source Creation and Management node. Right-click the template and choose Open. You can then make changes to the template in the Source Editor."
I hereby summarize results of today's discussion on usability meeting. We have all agreed that we need a better solution for this (e.g. customize template button as Jesse suggested or similar). I will make sure this gets into planning for next release. However we cannot implement it now as 4.1 release is close and we need to focus on bugfixing. So we will do this fast fix as Tor suggested. For next versions we want to use a better solution but right now let's focus on the low hanging fruit. We do not want to change all templates because it could be a lot irritating for users if they would have to remove the 3 lines of text from many templates. What we want is that users find a way how to customize templates because otherwise this feature remains hidden for majority. Thus we have agreed to put the text into the most important templates. To remain at least a bit consistent we will put it into Java-related templates (files covered by Martin's diffs). Martin, please use Patrick's text above and commit the changes. Comment out commit validation so that Jiri can fix it. Thanks for cooperation.
Templates updated. Reassigning to Jirka to fix the commit validation. Checking in instance/master-config.xml; /cvs/xtest/instance/master-config.xml,v <-- master-config.xml new revision: 1.132; previous revision: 1.131 done Checking in src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Applet.template; /cvs/java/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Applet.template,v <-- Applet.template new revision: 1.6; previous revision: 1.5 done Checking in src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Class.template; /cvs/java/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Class.template,v <-- Class.template new revision: 1.7; previous revision: 1.6 done Checking in src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Exception.template; /cvs/java/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Exception.template,v <-- Exception.template new revision: 1.6; previous revision: 1.5 done Checking in src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Interface.template; /cvs/java/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Interface.template,v <-- Interface.template new revision: 1.5; previous revision: 1.4 done Checking in src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/JApplet.template; /cvs/java/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/JApplet.template,v <-- JApplet.template new revision: 1.6; previous revision: 1.5 done Checking in src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Main.template; /cvs/java/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/resources/templates/Main.template,v <-- Main.template new revision: 1.8; previous revision: 1.7 done Checking in project/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/project/resources/AnnotationType.template; /cvs/java/project/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/project/resources/AnnotationType.template,v <-- AnnotationType.template new revision: 1.2; previous revision: 1.1 done Checking in project/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/project/resources/Enum.template; /cvs/java/project/src/org/netbeans/modules/java/project/resources/Enum.template,v <-- Enum.template new revision: 1.2; previous revision: 1.1 done
Commit validation fixed. /cvs/xtest/instance/master-config.xml,v <-- master-config.xml new revision: 1.134; previous revision: 1.133