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Developing Scripts in NetBeans

This document describes how to set up NetBeans for Office Scripting and how to write a simple script using NetBeans. You can download the NetBeans IDE from the NetBeans download page.

Contents:

Pre-requisites

  • The Office Scripting module works with NetBeans 3.4
  • You should have installed the Office Scripting module during the installation process for the Scripting Framework. If you have not installed it, see the Installation Guide for instructions on how to install.
  • On Linux, you will need to ensure that your DISPLAY environment variable is set to <your hostname>:0 in the shell from which you start NetBeans to work around a problem with Java GUIs in Office.
  • Create a directory somewhere on your machine in which you will develop your scripts.
Now start NetBeans and mount the directory you created using the File/Mount Filesystem menu option. You also need to mount all of the jar files in the <Office installation>/program/classes directory in order to access the Office API from your scripts.

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Creating a Parcel Recipe

Office scripts are delivered in Script Parcels. Like Office documents they are zip files. Script Parcels have the .sxp extension. Script Parcels are generated from Parcel Recipes where all of the files that are necessary to create the parcel are put together. To create a new Parcel Recipe:
  • Right click on your mounted filesystem
  • Select New/Office Scripting/Parcel Recipe
  • In the New Wizard window that appears enter a name for your Parcel Recipe
  • Select a language for your Parcel Recipe from the Initial Script Language dropdown list.
  • Click the Finish button to create your Parcel Recipe
This will create a new directory with the name you chose. In this directory you will find a Contents directory where all of your files will be placed. An empty stub file will have been placed in the Contents directory and can be used as a starting point for your script.

Note: To add further empty stub scripts to your Parcel Recipe, right click on the Contents directory and use the New/Office Scripting/Empty Script menu item.

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Actions available for Parcel Recipe

If the user right clicks on the parcel directory they should be able to use the following actions:
  • Compile: Compiles all of the .java files in the Parcel Recipe
  • Build: Compiles all of the .java files in the Parcel Recipe. It then searches for valid Office scripts in the language you selected in the Contents directory files and pops up a dialog which allows you to select which Java methods or BeanShell scripts you wish to export as Office scripts. Once you have finish making your selections, it creates a <Parcel Recipe Name>.sxp Script Parcel file in the Parcel Recipe directory. You can configure what files are put into the Script Parcel using the File Filter property. If you script includes any jar files that need to be in the classpath when it is executed you should add them to the Classpath property of your Parcel Recipe.
  • Configure: This pops up the Configure dialog, which allows you to select what Office scripts to export. Any changes you make in this dialog will only appear in your Script Parcel after you run Build again.

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Actions available for Script Parcels

Script Parcels supports only one action:
  • Deploy: This will deploy the Script Parcel to an Office Document or to an Office installation. If the Script Parcel already exists in the target, you will be asked whether you want to overwrite.

Note: If you deploy a Script Parcel to an OpenOffice.org installation you need to use the Tools/Scripting Add-on's/Refresh All Scripts menu item for the new script to appear in the Assign Script dialog.

Note: You can also deploy to Office documents within NetBeans using drag and drop or cut and paste.

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Actions available for Office Documents

Office Documents are also recognised by NetBeans. Any parcels contained in the document will be displayed as nodes of the Office document. Deleting one of these nodes will remove the Script Parcel from the document. You should ensure that the document is not open in OpenOffice.org before deleting any parcels it may contain. Office documents support the standard Delete, Cut and Copy actions and the following custom actions:
  • Open: This will open the document in Office using the path in the Office Settings property to find the Office installation.

    If the path to Office is not valid, an error dialog will be popped up informing the user that they need to set their Path to Office Installation property. This setting can be changed by bringing up the Tools/Options dialog and changing IDE Configuration/Server and External Tool Settings/Office Settings

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Debugging Java Office scripts in NetBeans

  • Follow the instructions at Debugging Java components in NetBeans/Forte for Java to set up your Office installation to allow debugging of the JVM.
  • Start OpenOffice and run one of your Java scripts. This will make sure the JVM is running.
  • Attach to Office JVM using the NetBeans Debug/Start Session/Attach... menu option.
  • Load a script source in NetBeans and set up breakpoints using Debug/New Breakpoint... menu option.
  • Run the script in Office.

Note: As the BeanShell scripting language does not support debugging it is not possible to debug BeanShell Office scripts from NetBeans. You can however use the Interactive BeanShell scripting menu item under the Tools menu in OpenOffice.org to test BeanShell code. Just enter any BeanShell code and hit the Eval button to execute it.

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Troubleshooting

  • If you encounter problems when developing or deploying scripts in NetBeans, one thing you can try is to move your NetBeans settings directory (.netbeans on UNIX, netbeans in Windows - can be found in your home directory) to another name and restart NetBeans.

  • The Choose What to Export as Scripts dialog only displays methods which are defined within class files, it will not display methods in class files which are within jar files in the Parcel Recipe.

  • If you include package directives in the Java source files of your Parcel Recipe, you should ensure that the source files are in the appropriate directories for your package directives. This is because the default NetBeans compiler implementation does not use the -d switch to the Java compiler. As a result class files do not get placed in the appropriate directories and methods in these classes will not appear in the Choose What to Export as Scripts dialog.

    There are a couple of workarounds for this problem:

    1. Use the command line tools
    2. Set the Target flag in the Tools/Options window under Building/Compiler Types/Internal Compilation

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Last Modified: Tue Mar 12 11:40:28 GMT 2003