Utilities API
Official

See:
Description

Utilities API

org.openide	Provides ErrorManager - the central place for logging and reproting failures in NetBeans based system.
org.openide.util	A set of utility classes covering a few general infrastructure points in the Open APIs.
org.openide.util.actions	There are several types of standard actions that should be used for many user interactions within NetBeans.
org.openide.util.datatransfer	NetBeans uses special extensions to data transfer.
org.openide.util.io	A set of utility classes providing extensions to the Java I/O system.
org.openide.xml	A set of utility classes assisting in the manipulation of XML documents.

This module contains general classes needed in NetBeans, extensions to basic JRE contepts, useful methods and other UtilitiesAPI classes.

What is New (see all changes)?

• Nov 14 '12 Automatic support for UserQuestionException

  The default NetBeans Platform infrastructure knows how to display dialog when a UserQuestionException is reported.

• Jun 11 '12 UNC-safe File / URI interconversion

  Utilities gets new methods toURI(File) and toFile(URI) which offer the UNC safety of NIO.2 even on JDK 6.

• Mar 8 '12 Exit with status code

  LifecycleManager has new exit method allowing callers to specify the exit code.

• Jan 3 '12 @NbBundle.Messages available on fields

  @NbBundle.Messages may now be used on fields, useful in case the field initializer involves some complex construction requiring a localized message. (Merely storing a localized message in a String constant is poor practice; inline the field instead.)

• Dec 13 '11 HelpCtx.display added

  To permit modules to display help pages where available without a direct dependency on the JavaHelp API, HelpCtx.display() was added together with a matching SPI.

Use Cases

How shall I do or influence logging in NetBeans?

If you are interested in logging from inside your module, or in writing your own log handler or in configuring the whole system, then best place to start is the NetBeans logging guide.

Exported Interfaces

This table lists all of the module exported APIs with defined stability classifications. It is generated based on answers to questions about the architecture of the module. Read them all...

Group of java interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
UtilitiesAPI	Exported	Official	.../org/openide/util/doc-files/api.html
AWTBridge	Exported	Private	.../modules/openide/util/AWTBridge.java a class that is looked up in Lookup.getDefault() and if registered can provide better UI elements for Actions.
SharedClassObject.setAccessible	Exported	Under Development	.../org/openide/util/SharedClassObject.html used to instantiate subclasses.
WeakListener.setAccessible	Exported	Under Development	.../org/openide/util/WeakListeners.html used to call the remove method using reflection

Group of property interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
BrandingSupport	Exported	Official	org/openide/util/NbBundle.html which is similar to localization but also supports changes of resorces for application build on top of NetBeans. This is handled by our class NbBundle which reimplements the JDK's standard ResourceBundle to to take branding into the consideration.
HelpID	Exported	Standard	org/openide/util/HelpCtx.html read from JComponent.getClientProperty to simulate the standard javahelp behaviour and extract the help id for given component.
org.openide.util.SharedClassObject.initialize	Exported	Private	For purposes of SystemOption the SharedClassObject handles getProperty ("org.openide.util.SharedClassObject.initialize") in a special way, by returning null if initialization is not running and Boolean.TRUE if it is.
OpenIDE-Transmodal-Action	Exported	Under Development	CallbackSystemAction checks whether action.getValue("OpenIDE-Transmodal-Action") returns Boolean.TRUE to enable it in dialogs, otherwise the action is disabled when there is an open dialog.

Group of java.io.File interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
FileLocation	Exported	Under Development	the JAR file is located in platform cluster under lib/org-openide-util.jar
TranslateNames	Exported	Official	org/openide/util/Utilities.html Utilities.translate reads META-INF/netbeans/translate.names files from JARs

Group of systemproperty interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
netbeans.screen.insets	Exported	Private	Influences results of Utilities.getUsableScreenBounds
netbeans.taskbar.height	Exported	Private	Influences results of Utilities.getUsableScreenBounds
org.openide.util.RequestProcessor.inactiveTime	Exported	Private	Specifies the time in ms unused RequestProcessor processor threads remain around, until they get GCed. By default 60s. Primarily used from tests.

Group of lookup interfaces

Interface Name	In/Out	Stability	Specified in What Document?
ActionManagerInvocation	Exported	Private	because of the API separation, CallableSystemAction uses lookup for ActionsBridge provided by org-openide-actions module when looking for org.openide.actions.ActionManager implementation.
LookupSharedClassObject	Exported	Under Development	singleton subclasses of SharedClassObject are searched for using Lookup.
LookupContextGlobalProvider	Exported	Stable	actionsGlobalContext searches for ContextGlobalProvider in Lookup.getDefault(). The provider is usually provided by window system implementation.
LookupEntityCatalog	Exported	Under Development	EntityCatalog delegates its methods to all instances of EntityCatalogs found in Lookup
LookupErrorManager	Exported	Under Development	ErrorManager delegates its methods to all instances of ErrorManagers found in Lookup
LookupClassLoader	Exported	Under Development	Nearly all resource looking functions and reflective code uses ClassLoader obtained from Lookup.getDefault() for loading system wide resources.

Implementation Details

Where are the sources for the module?

The sources for the module are in the NetBeans Mercurial repositories.

What do other modules need to do to declare a dependency on this one, in addition to or instead of a plain module dependency?

Nothing.

Read more about the implementation in the answers to architecture questions.