Hi everyone,
In case you didn’t keep up, NetBeans[/url] has finished up on their latest release and has now officially launched version 6.8. If interested you can grab it here. I’m not going into too much detail (this is a SDE forum after all) but would like to say that one of the major improvements in 6.8 is speed. They really did a massive job with optimizing code; I’ve never seen any NetBeans version start up on my PC as fast as 6.8; its very responsive. If you want to know more about what’s new in 6.8, here’s a good [url=http://netbeans.org/community/releases/68/relnotes.html#new]overview of the new features.
Now, the good folks at Visual Paradigm have made sure that SDE fully supports and integrates with this new version, and did so long before the first so called “Release candidate” of NB 6.8 (this is where having a license and support can pay of by giving you the end user that little extra advantage 
) but if you’re just like me currently using NB 6.7.1 and have a nice installation of SDE 5.1 on your disk the question now becomes… How to update? Will you uninstall and then re-install for your current NB version ?
No need… But before I continue let me stress out that what I’m describing here is not an officially supported method and please do make sure that you make some backups of your environment before proceeding. This method works excellent for me, but there are no guarantees that it does so for you. Caution is required.
Important: When in doubt, follow the official guidelines.
Right, having said that…
The wonderful thing about VP’s SDE product is that its actually a “combined” product which packs many different possibilities. One of them is a full fledged installer. And its this installer which I’m going to utilize… I have performed this method on Linux this evening, I know it should work on Windows as well but… I have had some issues on Vista in the past due to its “User Access Control” manager.
First of all we’re going to point SDE to the new NB version. Make sure that neither NB nor SDE is running. Then goto the SDE installation directory (in my case /opt/VP_Suite4.1) and there you will find a “.resources” subdirectory (no “” of course). In this directory you will find the file “.product_installation.xml”. It is here where SDE keeps track of its installation directory. If all you’re using is SDE-NB it’ll be easy, otherwise I guess you could discover more lines here. Find one which says “product id=“sdenb””. Here you’ll also discover the installation path. Now; this is what you will want to change. In my case I changed the entry (make sure to leave the “”'s and such intact) “/opt/netbeans-6.7.1” into “/opt/netbeans-6.8”.
Once that is done all that is left to do is to ask SDE to install itself again. That is easily done by leaving the “resources” directory and going into the “launcher” directory. Here you will find a file called “VP_Suite_Product_Edition_Manager”. Fire it up, but do make sure that your user account has enough privileges to write to the NetBeans directory. When started it will tell you that no product has been installed yet (naturally; since we pointed it to a pristine NB installation) and asks if you want to install it.
Now that’s flexibility!
Proceed as you normally would and select the version you licensed (SDE-NB ME in my case), then optionally the kind of documentation you want installed (in my case both the online as well as the HTML version) and the installation will soon be on its way.
When its done it will ask if it should start SDE for you. I chose not to do so, but instead launched NetBeans manually from the console. This allows you to check if everything is going as it should; any errors (Exceptions for example) are immediately noticed on the console.
During the first run you might notice that it can take some time before things start. And that SDE isn’t available in a projects pop up menu (right mouse click). No worries! That is only during the first run. Just start SDE by using the tools menu (tools -> load SDE-NB) and check if everything works as it should. When things work out; you’re almost done… Close NetBeans, and then re-start it like you’d normally would (using a menu option in your GUI perhaps?). Now you’ll notice that things are much faster, and that the SDE option in the context menu (right click on a project) is back.
But what really blew me away this evening… You might notice that SDE will start faster than it ever has before :shock:
Well, that was a definite breaking point for me to move all my stuff over to NetBeans 6.8.
And there you have it!
Although I targeted Linux this approach should also be usable on Windows. The only possible caveat here could be the UAC when trying it on Vista. I recall having issues with that, but its been a while ago.
Good luck.
