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While standard builds generally want to have JavaHelp documentation from modules unpacked into the docs/ directory (so that users can browse it offline), this is not necessary for development-oriented builds. In fact it consumes a large chunk of the time in a full IDE build just to copy the hundreds of little HTML files from e.g. usersguide into the output directory during the merge. Suggest some Ant property, like -Dnetbeans.packed-javahelp=true, which if set would pack JavaHelp into module JARs instead of copying to docs/ directory. Developers could then run with this mode on (unless testing stuff specific to unpacked JavaHelp, of course, which would mostly be just me). Would require minor modifications to scripts for modules containing JavaHelp, and documentation on nbbuild.netbeans.org saying the mode exists.
I agree with you. There are so many files to change, I think it is continuous work.
Target milestone -> 3.3
Note that in the trunk, usersguide, apisupport, and ant already pack help anyway (the JavaHelp HTML has no internal navigation, it is not particularly helpful unpacked).
Is this still valid?
No, all modules now seem to pack their help anyway.