Configuring NetBeans IDE for Developer Collaboration

Before you can use NetBeans Developer Collaboration, you need a collaboration account on a collaboration server or collaboration service. There is a free public collaboration service available from www.java.net. This service is hosted on a collaboration server called share.java.net.

If you find you have constraints that prohibit the use of a public collaboration server, you have the following alternatives.

• Install and configure the Sun Java System Messaging Server.

  The Sun Java System Messaging Server is free and can be downloaded at: http://www.sun.com/software/products/messaging_srvr/index.xml.

  You will need to follow the Sun Java System Messaging Server instructions to successfully install and configure Sun Java System Messaging Server so it may be used as a collaboration server for NetBeans Developer Collaboration.

• Install a JXTA peer-to-peer Collaboration plug-in module into NetBeans IDE.

  At the time of this writing, a peer-to-peer JXTA-based plug-in is being planned to be made available that allows you to use NetBeans Developer Collaboration without requiring a dedicated collaboration server such as Sun Java System Messaging Server.

  The installation and configuration for the JXTA based plug-in requires only a download of the plug-in and installation into NetBeans IDE. The installation and configuration of the JXTA plug-in will be significantly less than required by the Sun Java System Messaging Server.

  However, the JXTA-based plug-in limits developer conversations to two participants, whereas a collaboration server, such as Sun Java System Messaging Server, allows many more than two developers to participate in a collaboration session or conversation.

The NetBeans IDE development team has been testing the Developer Collaboration plug-in modules with open source messaging server software called jabberd and is actively contributing fixes to the open source jabberd project. At the time of this writing, it is not recommended to use jabberd as a collaboration server with NetBeans Developer Collaboration due to stability reasons. But, this may change as additional contributions are made to the jabberd project.