Scripting/Extending NetBeans in Ruby

[Martin Krauskopf]

Hi all,

I've another small "poll". Few times we were asked if it is possible to
write NetBeans extensions in Ruby. Technically there should not be any
barriers, but I'm rather curious how much users would want to write such
extensions or script the IDE. What are your opinion? Would you try to
script or extends NetBeans in Ruby if it would be more easily possible.
What use-case would you have?

I experimented with this, or similar, idea and write a little bit about
it here:

   http://blogs.sun.com/martink/entry/scripting_netbeans_in_ruby

but so far only for adventurous ;) Not so easy now, but should not be
hard to come with something more decent.

Likely would be rather 'weekend' project in the beginning. But question
is whether such effort does worth it.

        m.


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[Tim Haines-2]

If I had a decent use case I'd like the ability to do it.  Can't think of an overwhelming use for it at the moment tho..

I'd put my hand up for rspec story runner support first.  :-)

Tim.

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 8:28 AM, Martin Krauskopf <Martin.Krauskopf@...> wrote:

Hi all,

I've another small "poll". Few times we were asked if it is possible to
write NetBeans extensions in Ruby. Technically there should not be any
barriers, but I'm rather curious how much users would want to write such
extensions or script the IDE. What are your opinion? Would you try to
script or extends NetBeans in Ruby if it would be more easily possible.
What use-case would you have?

I experimented with this, or similar, idea and write a little bit about
it here:

 http://blogs.sun.com/martink/entry/scripting_netbeans_in_ruby

but so far only for adventurous ;) Not so easy now, but should not be
hard to come with something more decent.

Likely would be rather 'weekend' project in the beginning. But question
is whether such effort does worth it.

       m.


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[Anthony Richardson-3]

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:58 AM, Martin Krauskopf <Martin.Krauskopf@...> wrote:

Hi all,

I've another small "poll". Few times we were asked if it is possible to
write NetBeans extensions in Ruby.

Hi Martin,

I have been thinking about this post for  awhile now and have some ideas on how I would like to script the IDE using ruby. It would be good to be able to create GUI's to support specific plugins, like special log parsers, code analysers, query analysers. All the other sort of tools one might use during development that you want to launch from the IDE and then parse and display the output.

For something like a code analyzer that gave say test coverage or execution time of ruby code, to be able to parse the output and show the data in a window that is specific to the current file active in the editor (so the scriping would have to be able to query Netbeans for current file and current project etc..).

Being able to add menu items and toolbar items would be good.

I would like to be able to hook the run and debug actions to execute pre-execution scripts. E.g. I have some rake tasks that are designed to compile multiple javascripts into one javascript file. It would be good to be able to trigger than rake task to happen before running the project, or if the project is running to have the rake task execute on file save (if the file is a javascript file).

Would be good to be able to add support for project management / defect tools into the IDE. E.g. http://lighthouseapp.com or http://unfuddle.com or http://www.redmine.org which all have web services API's.

Anyway, there a few ideas!

Cheers,

Anthony Richardson

[KirkZ]

To me this would be a very general enhancement.

1.  If one is writing a Netbeans RCP application and wants to use or provide Ruby as a scripting mechanism for their application, it would be very nice if Netbeans already had the same feature -- then you just include a module dependency for ruby ide scripting support and much of the work (at least the packaging part) is done. Ideally, this would package a jruby-complete in your final app.

2. Ruby has a nice set of libraries and gems.  It would be nice if you could simply write Netbeans modules that made use of them.

For more use cases, look at the emerging practices in the Apple developer community of writing entire (and full-fledged) Mac OS X applications in Ruby and/or Python.  By giving those languages full support and access to the application frameworks, Apple has made such things easy.

Thanks for asking this question, I've been searching high and low for an example of how to do this kind of thing assuming it must be a common task.  Finding your post, I see it hasn't really been developed yet, so I'm glad to see the thread starting.

-Kirk

Martin Krauskopf wrote:

Hi all,

I've another small "poll". Few times we were asked if it is possible to
write NetBeans extensions in Ruby. Technically there should not be any
barriers, but I'm rather curious how much users would want to write such
extensions or script the IDE. What are your opinion? Would you try to
script or extends NetBeans in Ruby if it would be more easily possible.
What use-case would you have?

I experimented with this, or similar, idea and write a little bit about
it here:

   http://blogs.sun.com/martink/entry/scripting_netbeans_in_ruby

but so far only for adventurous ;) Not so easy now, but should not be
hard to come with something more decent.

Likely would be rather 'weekend' project in the beginning. But question
is whether such effort does worth it.

        m.


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[Martin Krauskopf]

Anthony Richardson wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:58 AM, Martin Krauskopf
> <Martin.Krauskopf@... <mailto:Martin.Krauskopf@...>> wrote:
>
>     Hi all,
>
>     I've another small "poll". Few times we were asked if it is possible to
>     write NetBeans extensions in Ruby.
>
>
> Hi Martin,
>
> I have been thinking about this post for  awhile now and have some ideas
> on how I would like to script the IDE using ruby.

[...]

Thanks for all ideas Anthony. This is definitely large field and also
seems to be relatively unexplored so all ideas, use-cases are welcomed.
I've saved you ideas for time when I start the second round of playing
with this.
I'll likely write up some wiki covering this topic and comes with news
in the blog.

Thanks,
        m.

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[Martin Krauskopf]

KirkZ wrote:

> To me this would be a very general enhancement.
>
> 1.  If one is writing a Netbeans RCP application and wants to use or provide
> Ruby as a scripting mechanism for their application, it would be very nice
> if Netbeans already had the same feature -- then you just include a module
> dependency for ruby ide scripting support and much of the work (at least the
> packaging part) is done. Ideally, this would package a jruby-complete in
> your final app.
>
> 2. Ruby has a nice set of libraries and gems.  It would be nice if you could
> simply write Netbeans modules that made use of them.
>
> For more use cases, look at the emerging practices in the Apple developer
> community of writing entire (and full-fledged) Mac OS X applications in Ruby
> and/or Python.  By giving those languages full support and access to the
> application frameworks, Apple has made such things easy.
>
> Thanks for asking this question, I've been searching high and low for an
> example of how to do this kind of thing assuming it must be a common task.
> Finding your post, I see it hasn't really been developed yet, so I'm glad to
> see the thread starting.

Hi Kirk,

as with Anthony, thanks for your ideas and points. As you indicated this
is not Ruby specific, so will be wanted by more communities, likely
mainly Python one.
Again saving your notes for the second and later 'rounds'.

Thanks,
        m.

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