How do I Ignore the build folder in NetBeans 'Find In Projects'?

Question

Anyone know how to ignore the build folder when doing a 'Find in Projects' on NetBeans (v6.9.1).

Currently the Search results pane shows all results from src folders but also those from the build folder so if your project contains a lot of JSP files for example, many results are duplicated...

Answer 1

I think I've figured out how to ignore the build folder of projects when doing a 'Find in Projects' in NetBeans 6.9.1:

1. Go to Tools->Options-Miscellaneous.
2. Click the Files tab.

3. In Files Ignored by the IDE, edit the Ignored Files Pattern regular expression and include the build folder. For example, on my system I simply added build thus:

   ^(CVS|SCCS|vssver.?\.scc|#.*#|%.*%|_svn|build)$|~$|^\.(?!htaccess$).*$
   

4. Click OK to save the options and close the dialog.

(Nerd Note: Took me exactly 1 year to the day to figure this out!)

Answer 2

You may be able to get similar behavior with a multiple node selection search.

• From the 'Files' Window (Found in the Window/Files Menu), expand all of your projects and select all of them with a Ctrl+A (PC) or Command+A (Mac).

• Then with Control(PC) or Command(Mac) key held down, click the folders that you don't want to search.

• Finally, use Ctrl+F(PC) or Command+F(Mac) to open a search, enter the text you're looking for, and then choose 'Selection ( # nodes)' under the Scope where the '#' symbol is the number of folders you just selected.

It is a little more manual than applying a filter, but you should be able to better control your results.