GeeWhiz Prolog - Part Eight - Creating An NBM

What We'll Be Doing

Well, we've come a long way. Our NetBeans-embedded Prolog IDE has grown like Topsy (whoever Topsy is) and now threatens to take over NetBeans entirely and make everyone program in Prolog instead of Java. Okay, maybe not, but it has come a long way as I said. We will look at what we've accomplished in a post mortem in a little bit, but right now let's create a NetBeans plug-in module (NBM) from GeeWhiz Prolog and install the module into our development IDE at last.

Creating The NBM

As I'm sure you've noticed, one of the options on the GeeWhiz project context menu in NetBeans has always been "Create NBM". Go ahead and clean and build GeeWhiz, right-click on the project and select "Create NBM" now.

After some whirring and clanking (note to self: backup Aspen files!) the IDE settles down again and you've created the NBM file. Unless you have the output window open you might not even notice that anything happened as there is no user interaction for this process.

What we've done is generate a nifty little zip file called (in my case) "org-hulles-geewhiz.nbm" in the build folder of our project.

At this point, you should save the NBM file to another directory. I realized to my chagrin while writing this that the "clean" process in cleaning and building your project wipes out the build directory, including the NBM file. It's easy enough to regenerate, as we just saw, but still.... One wants to be sure the NBM file one thinks one has matches the file one thought one had, doesn't one? Yes one does, by golly.

I'm not sure you noticed in the above screenshot, but I had the properties for the NBM file open so you could see what I saw the first time I went through this process. "Hmm," says I to myself. "The size is a little larger than I thought it would be. And I guess the NetBeans folks forgot to put the 'kB' on the size property. It's still too large to host as a download, though." Then I went and looked at the file in the folder just to make sure and it's 47kB! Dang, that's like buying a case of beer for a dollar, it just doesn't happen that often these days. So it's a little file, is my point, and I can stick it on my blog site as a download without a further thought. Hell, I can even email it as an attachment to my Aunt Margaret in Philly who still has dial-up. (Not sure she has NetBeans, though....)

So now what do we do with our brand new (and shrimpy little) NBM file? For one thing, if we wanted to we could make it available to the whole world via the NetBeans Plug-In Download Center (or whatever it's called) but that's a bit outside the scope of this project and besides, it's not ready for implementation yet. But we can use it to finally install GeeWhiz Prolog in our development IDE if we want to. So let's do that.

Installing The NBM In Your IDE

There is probably a more dignified way to install a local NBM into your IDE, but the way I found works pretty well so we'll use that. In the main menu of your development IDE click "Tools", then "Plugins". Once the Plugins manager has started, select the Downloads tab. Click the "Add Plugins..." button and navigate to your NBM file and select it.

Now your new module looks all shiny and ready to go, doesn't it? You can change the information that shows up on the right by right-clicking the GeeWhiz project and selecting "Properties" and filling out the "Display" and "Packaging" tabs in the Properties window. Then of course you have to recreate your NBM file. Once you're ready to bite the bullet, select "GeeWhiz Prolog" then click the "Install" button.

On the first screen there isn't much to do but sit and admire the professional look of your work. When you're ready, click the "Next" button.

On the next screen, unless you created a GeeWhiz license when I wasn't looking, you can just go ahead and click "Install". Ignore the "not digitally signed" messages you will generate unless you also signed it when you created the license, you rascal.

Eventually the IDE will come back and tell you the module is installed. To check it, select "Tools" "Module Manager" from the main menu and there GeeWhiz Prolog is, under "Language Support".

Gee whiz! Ain't it great? Check it out in your IDE; all the functions we tested in the target IDE should be there. You might consider copying or moving the Algorithms project from the target project directory to your real project directory, just to have test fodder available.

Guess What - We're Done!

That wraps up our adventures with GeeWhiz Prolog, at least for now. I am in the process of creating a home page for GeeWhiz Prolog on my blog that you can check occasionally if you want. I will post the NBM there, plus a complete set of source files, plus a PDF of all the GeeWhiz blog entries for your convenience in downloading and reading offline. Any addenda and errata (as if) will be posted there as well. I already thought of one thing I forgot to mention, and that's that you can zoom in and out (ctrl + mouse button) and pan (hold middle mouse button) on the modeling diagrams we created earlier.

As a special bonus for acting now, you will also receive an additional Java class in the complete source file archive called SceneExport.java that may or may not create a .PNG file from the modeling diagram. I'm still working on it and haven't incorporated it into the diagram yet, but I'm sure I'll write about it when I do. It's based on a slightly cryptic code segment in the Visual Library API and... Oh, just wait and read the article when I write it.

It's hard to end this series. I feel like we just scratched the surface with GeeWhiz Prolog, but hey, the surface itched. So... ciao, it's been fun. I hope you found this series useful, informative and occasionally entertaining. -- Hulles

GeeWhiz Prolog Feature Summary

• Incorporated as an integral part of the NetBeans IDE
• Has a WYSIWYG source code editor
• Provides Prolog syntax checking and highlighting
• Works with the sidebar statement navigator
• Generates a visual and interactive Prolog predicate model that personally rocks my world
• Supports in-line Prolog source code compilation with error lines linked back to source
• Is O/S- and compiler-independent
• Is installable as a plug-in module to the NetBeans IDE
• Is free
• The source code is easily modifiable since you build the damn thing yourself
• Did I mention it's free?

Going Further - My GeeWhiz Notes

Fixes And Improvements To Current Features

Use public API for Generic Languages Framework

Change PrologAST to not user ParserManagerImpl to get the AST root node so we can go back to the public API and not use an implementation version of GLF.

Change Names To Be More Descriptive

Change the name of the PrologClause class to PrologPredicate, e.g. In other words, refactor refactor refactor.

Improve the Prolog grammar definition

Improve the grammar defined in language.nbs for Prolog. I think it can be simplified and improved.

Improve threading in GeeWhiz

Analyze GeeWhiz and introduce threading, concurrency, Runnables and all of that kind of shit so it looks like I know what I'm doing in Java but that makes the code five times more complicated and harder to understand.

Take care of compiler warnings

Analyze the warnings produced by the IDE when it starts up the target IDE and see what I can fix and what I should leave alone.

Experiment with other SWI Prolog compiler options

Try the -s option instead of the -c option and actually read the SWI documentation a little more closely.

Fix remaining TODOs in code comments

Probably I'll need to look at the good old Task List (ctrl+6) sometime. Jeez, it's like being married....

Fix the *&$%!* coffee cup icon on my new Prolog projects

Enough said. Although while I'm at it I can see if there's anything else I can get rid of (or add) for new Prolog projects.

Add license and digital certificate to GeeWhiz

I should maybe make this an entry since a first glance at the docs available seemed less than promising.

Find out how to create a target platform that is leaner for performance reasons

Either that or buy a faster machine.

Additional Features That Could Be Added To GeeWhiz

Localize messages, strings, etc.

Be a good world citizen and stick all messages etc. in Bundle

Add help

Add JavaHelp to the project. This might be another entry as well. It's pretty cool how it works, though....

Make the static predicate visual model dynamic and refer back to source

This is complicated by the fact that the predicate / clause relationship is not 1:1, but maybe light up all source clauses when a widget is selected....

Add freemarker support

Oops, I was going to do that as part of the original project. Hopefully no one noticed.

Interact with SWI Prolog via IOProvider Reader

Just for fun we should try out the Reader in the output window.

Create a satellite view for the modeler

Make a satellite view of the diagram a la Geertjan's example but preferably in a different window (popup?) as opposed to a sidebar.

Add XPCE support

Add support for SWI Prolog's buddy XPCE somehow. That would be a challenge, I bet... Wonder if it's Windows-compatible.

Either They're IDE Bugs Or I'm Doing Something Wrong Dept.

On-again / off-again DataObject-dependent icons and menu items

Find out once and for all if the above is me or the IDE. Then yell at the IDE people regardless.

Wizards should be able to deal with icons already in the project directory

For creating actions e.g. the wizard shouldn't give an error if the icon is already in the directory.

Better reload support in "Install / reload to target"

I shouldn't have to clean the project every damn time I retest. Look into security errors etc.

Areas For Further Research

• NetBeans platforms and their creation
• Visual Library, especially the VMD part
• JavaHelp
• DataObjects, cookies, and their ilk