Contributing to the NetBeans Code Base

Although Sun Microsystems is the major contributer behind the NetBeans open-source project, community developers are a major part of what makes NetBeans IDE a better IDE.

There are two ways you can contribute to the NetBeans code base:

• Contribute patches to the NetBeans code base.
• Build your own modules and making them available to the community.

Working with the NetBeans Sources

The NetBeans sources are maintained in a Mercurial repository on netbeans.org. If you want to contribute to the NetBeans source code base directly, you can check them out and get developer check-in access. If you are just building plug-in modules for NetBeans IDE, you do not need to check out the sources. The latest release of NetBeans IDE contains all of the Platform libraries you need to develop modules.

• Getting the sources
• Getting mercurial push access
• Building the sources
• Commit guidelines

Get Help with the NetBeans Code Base

• Module quick start guide
• Platform tutorials
• NetBeans API documentation
• NetBeans platform FAQs

Developer Mailing Lists

Got a problem or a question? Ask the NetBeans developer mailing lists:

• nbdev

Testing Backwards Compatibility

Another way you can help improve the NetBeans code base is by testing new releases of the NetBeans Platform and IDE for backwards compatibility. Get involved now!