Marauroa on NetBeans

Introduction

These instructions assume that you will include the minimum required to use the Marauroa engine. Additional features and functions are covered in separate pages.

Note that the Marauroa engine is NOT a complete application. You will need to add more code to use it within a game application.

See the Talk page for version information.

Requirements

If not already installed, you will need the following.

Java

The Marauroa engine is written using Java. You will need to install the Java Development Kit (JDK) from [1].

NetBeans

NetBeans is downloaded from [2]. It can be extended by installing a large number of plugins; if you are not sure, just use the default installation.

Marauroa Source

There are three ways to use Marauroa with your project. You can choose the one that best suits your needs.

Released sources can be downloaded from the Arianne website.

Compiled Marauroa

Download the compiled jar file from the Arianne website and use that as a library in the NetBeans project. You can skip the rest of this page. You will be limited in what you can do with it.

Released Source code

Download the source code from the Arianne website and build it yourself. You will be able to view the source code (if, for example, you want a deeper understanding of how it works), run a debug session into the Marauroa source code, and create the Javadoc help information. See the rest of this page for this method.

Code from the Repository

Marauroa source code is held in a Git repository, and you can connect NetBeans to that repository and download the very latest code. This can be compiled, as with the released source code, but may not be as stable (it should be, though). You can find and fix bugs or make modifications, and submit patches back to the Marauroa project. Getting the code from the repository is covered in the NetBeans and Git page.

Directory structures

The following directory structure is one suggestion and is used in the instructions. Choose a different one if you wish.

You will need a location where you can save the files needed for development. The top level location is referred to as DEVPATH. Replace this with whatever you have chosen as that location. Do not create any sub-directories yet.

Start NetBeans

Start the NetBeans IDE. Close any open projects if they are not those covered here.

Click New Project, choose Java and Java Class Library. Click Next, then give the Project Name as marauroa. Change the Project Location to the top level location (DEVPATH, see above); the Project Folder is shown as DEVPATH\marauroa with DEVPATH being your chosen location. Directory DEVPATH\marauroa must be empty (or not exist).

The empty Project is created in NetBeans. Under the Files tab you will see the directory structure it has also generated; check this using your file explorer.

Expand the Marauroa source file you have downloaded. Create a new directory named libs (i.e. DEVPATH\marauroa\libs). Copy the files log4j.jar, jnlp.jar and jython.jar from the source file libs directory to this new directory. Copy the whole of the source file src directory to the src directory created by NetBeans.

Return to the NetBeans IDE (Projects tab). It should have rescanned the files and read them into the project. If not, select Source, Scan for External Changes from the menu. A red exclamation mark warning icon shows the location of several errors. Right click the Libraries branch of the project tree, and select Add Jar/Folder. Browse to the the libs directory for this project and select the log4j.jar file. Wait until the scanning process has finished, then repeat for each of the jar files copied from the source file libs directory (or use Ctrl-click to select multiple jar files). All red warning icons should disappear.

Build Marauroa

If there are no errors in the package, select Run, Build Project from the NetBeans menu bar. This will create marauroa.jar in the dist directory.

Select Run, Generate Javadoc from the NetBeans menu bar. This will create the Javadoc documentation files in the dist\javadoc directory, and open the index.html file from that directory in your web browser. The javadoc files contain the Marauroa documentation extracted from the source files. Read them or ignore them, it is your choice; you do not have to create them. They will be useful when you are trying to understand the structure of the Marauroa engine. To read them later, open the index.html in your web browser.

Completion

The marauroa.jar file is in the dist directory. This is what you will need for your game. This step has only created the marauroa library, not a game.

Note that there are licence and acknowledgement files in the source you downloaded. You need to consider these when you have completed your game.