how to create a general project only containing one folder in netbeans 6.9

Question

how to create a general project only containing one folder in netbeans 6.9? In eclipse i can do it, but in netbeans sometime i just want to organize some files related to some category, so i want to create a single project just only containing folder and files, but now it seems that it's not possible.

if someone has the same problem, and can share your experience, thank u.

Answer 1

When I need to have access to a collection of files located in a folder or group of sub-folders, and I don't need much IDE support, then I add the top-level folder to the "Favorites" tab. From there I can open any file in an editor, and perform other file system commands that NetBeans makes available. If you are using a version control system supported by NetBeans with that collection of files, then those commands should be available to you too. What is not available are things like "Build" and "Debug", etc. (obviously).

If you cannot see the "Favorites" tab (it would be in with "Projects", "Files", "Services", etc.), then open the Window menu and click on Favorites.

As @lepe suggests, if your files all tend to be of a particular type, then you can create a project of that type, and then have access to the files on the "Projects" tab. Just ignore the "extra" stuff that NetBeans is giving you.

Finally, "Freeform" project types exist for certain types of projects, and Java also has an "Automatic" project type (if you install the appropriate plugin from the Update Center). These types of projects more closely resemble NetBeans-generated projects insofar as they are designed to be used with existing Ant build.xml scripts and whatnot (Automatic projects are a bit looser on that), but they still assume that the project is intended for builds, etc.

If you have a "generic" project that uses Ant to "do stuff" kind of like a build, then you might be able to subvert one of the "Freeform" project types, cajoling it into what you need.

In the end, I find just having the folder in "Favorites" works the best for me when I don't need all the extra stuff.

Answer 2

The benefit of Projects as opposed to Favorites is that each project remembers the files you had open when you last switched away from that project.

I use NetBeans just for editing web stuff (HTML, CSS and JavaScript files) within the context of a larger Java project (for which I use Eclipse). I use the PHP version of NetBeans, since it's the most light weight version that handles these web resources. To create a new NetBeans project for my existing Java web app I do: File > New Project > PHP > PHP Application with Existing Sources. On the next wizard screen, in "Sources Folder" browse for the folder that is the parent of all your web stuff (e.g. src/main/webapp). Leave all the other fields with their default values, just to humour NetBeans that we're dealing with a PHP project. Click Finish. No PHP specific stuff gets created. A "nbproject" folder is the only thing that gets created in your chosen folder. (There is the option of locating this outside of the project but I find it convenient to have it located with the project itself, and I just configure my source control system to ignore this folder.)