Re: Mounting filesystems and such

Sean R. Kirkpatrick wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 04:38:28PM +0200, Tim Boudreau wrote:
> 
>>We've also talked a bit about the idea of "education builds" - basically
>>a NetBeans build with all of the bells and whistles stripped out - just
>>basic compile, edit, debug, no form editor, nothing but the most basic
>>and critical functionality.
>>
> 
> Yeah, this would be a very good idea. If I am struggling with it, I know
> that my students will. I don't know that a special build is necessary,
> but maybe a package that has all but the basics disabled that we can
> turn on as we grow would be helpful. We do end up talking about forms
> and such later in the semester, so being able to turn that back on is
> very useful.
> 
> I found a doc on your website that described how to do something like
> this, but it didn't match the new 3.3.2 IDE config options very well, and 
> I was still left with much more than I wanted.
> 
> I'll reiterate that having a UML-like front end would be a MAJOR
> advantage. Getting the mind shifted into the object paradigm is the 
> biggest hurdle for newcomers. Compared to NetBeans, BlueJ is very clunky 
> in appearance, but those boxes and arrows are compelling.
> 
> 
>>While that's not a part of the build process yet, it is relatively easy
>>to do a shared install of NetBeans and configure it as such.  Will your
>>students be working off a shared instance of NetBeans, or installing it
>>on their own?
>>
> 
> I will be having our labstaff load a shared version for use in our lab,
> but I suspect that most students will load their own. If I can figure
> out how to turn most of the stuff off, I may make my own package for
> them, or write up the instructions and post it on my web.

In a pinch, try the following:

Run NetBeans as root or whatever has permissions to modify files in
the install dir.

To set up the settings you want, open the Tools | Options tree.  In
this dialog is an expander button in the middle-top that allows you
to determine what "layer" settings are stored in - system, project or
user.  Set your settings as you want them (you may want to play with
the Look & Feel | Menu Bar folder to yank out some menu items and 
toolbars, turn off modules, etc.).  For each setting, set it to be
stored in the system layer.  This means that configuration will 
propagate to everyone using this install of NetBeans.  You can then,
if you want, simply do, e.g. zip -9r netbeans.zip netbeans/ and you
will have your package (sans installer, but all anyone needs to do
is unzip it anyway - the only thing the installer does is add 
uninstaller info.

Anyway, hope that helps.

And yes, the UML front end is a good idea, and will not be forgotten.

-Tim