Is there a NetBeans equivalent to Eclipse's Workspace

Question

I enjoy using NetBeans, especially for development with Maven, however, I've found recently that I've been working with three different branches of the same code base in different parts of the development cycle.

One of the things that Eclipse can do is separate the projects into different workspaces, so I can simply start Eclipse with the workspace containing my Maven projects in the production patch branch or the trunk depending upon what I need to be working on.

I'd love to accomplish this in NetBeans, but haven't found a way to do so. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I am using Mac OS with version 6.7.1.

There is the option of project group.

In File > Project group.

In here you can create a project group based on a folder location, so any projects underneath this folder will be considered within this project group.

When switching between project groups only projects within are displayed, and it maintains the current status of opened files, etc.

Switching between project groups doesn't require closing the IDE.

Given those options I believe this would be equivalent to the workspace switching in Eclipse.

Answer 2

I've found two things:

First there is a "similar" feature. It involves using the userdir switch on the command line. The downside being you would need to restart your IDE rather than switching while open. I think I can live with that for the time being. I found the technique here for Windows:

1. Create a shortcut on your desktop to the Netbeans executable: C:\Program Files\NetBeans x.x\bin\netbeans.exe
2. Right-click on the shortcut and click "Properties".
3. In the "Target" textbox, add the extra parameter to the very end: --userdir C:\path\to\new_workspace
4. Click "OK" to exit the Properties window and double click the shortcut. Netbeans will launch and create/load the workspace at that location

Secondly, someone has submitted a feature to allow for workspace switching (or in this case userdir switching) from the IDE itself. Perhaps this will be rolled into 7.0.