JSC 2.1 ignores path properties in nbproject/project.properties ?

Question

Hi,
I have to import a Netbeans 5.0 project into JSC 2.1 in order to use the JSF UI designer. The project has the Java BluePrints source structure with all folders external to the Netbeans project folder (because it was created with other tools in the past). It is a mix of legacy servlets, plain JSP and JSF pages.
In Netbeans it was no problem to import the source tree by using the option "Web Application with Existing sources" from the project wizard and tweaking the pathes in nbproject/project.properties. In JSC this option does not exist. Also I cannot just move all the sources into a standard JSC project folder since it is a large project in a CVS repository. Also I cannot use softlinks since some people work on the project using Windows and some use Linux.
So I tried to edit the path settings in nbproject/project.properties manually. Here are the relevant lines I changed from a default JSF project created by the JSC wizard I used to manually import the project into JSC:
conf.dir=${file.reference.jsctest-src}/conf
file.reference.jsctest-test=../../test
file.reference.jsctest-web=../../web
file.reference.jsctest-src=../../src
jsf.pagebean.package=jsctest
jsf.project.libraries.dir=lib   # <-- not sure what goes in here
source.root=${file.reference.jsctest-src}
src.dir=${file.reference.jsctest-src}/java
test.src.dir=${file.reference.jsctest-test}
web.docbase.dir=${file.reference.jsctest-web}The web.xml, faces-config.xml, ... etc. are all prepared for JSC. JSC seems to understand it and opens it correctly and list the external folders like Netbeans would. But when I try to add a new JSF UI based page I get a NullPointerException. From the message log:
java.lang.reflect.UndeclaredThrowableException
     at $Proxy14.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
     at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:1849)
     at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2169)
     at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(DefaultButtonModel.java:420)
     at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.setPressed(DefaultButtonModel.java:258)
     at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicButtonListener.mouseReleased(BasicButtonListener.java:234)
     at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Component.java:5488)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
     at com.sun.rave.api.jsf.project.ui.WebFormIterator.instantiate(WebFormIterator.java:131)
     at org.openide.loaders.TemplateWizard.handleInstantiate(TemplateWizard.java:557)
     at org.openide.loaders.TemplateWizard.instantiateNewObjects(TemplateWizard.java:396)
     at org.openide.loaders.TemplateWizardIterImpl.instantiate(TemplateWizardIterImpl.java:218)
     at org.openide.WizardDescriptor.callInstantiate(WizardDescriptor.java:1425)
     at org.openide.WizardDescriptor.access$900(WizardDescriptor.java:63)
     at org.openide.WizardDescriptor$Listener.actionPerformed(WizardDescriptor.java:1327)
[catch] ... 67 moreWhen I look into the files view of the project I see that JSC recognizes the classes in the external source packages folder like Netbeans would. But it creates at the same time a non-existing folder named src below the JSC project folder which contaings an empty folder named "jsctest" (the default package name I selected for page beans).
So it seems some part of JSC (the web designer?) ignores the path settings in nbproject/project.properties while others (the code from NB4.1?) does not. When I move all project sources into the JSC project folder in their standard location it works but as I wrote above doing that is not an option because CVS etc..
Or do I have to set some additonal properties in the project for the designer? Or is there any other way to import such a legacy project to create new JSF pages with the designer (we cannot change all servlets / pages at once).
Or is it just a bug in JSC 2.1 I should report? Or is it a unsupported feature JSC will never support?
Thanks in advance,
regards,
Thomas

Answer 1

Thanks for your answer.
Unfortunately, as I described in my inital posting, it is not possible for me to do a refactoring of the source structure in Netbeans because the project is based on a CVS repository and I cannot change the pathes there for several reasons. The web folder and sources folder are outside of the Netbeans project folder anyway. I just thouhgt that JSC would read the pathes from the project.properties file like Netbeans but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I guess we have to wait for the next JSC version or check out other options.
Thanks anyway,
Thomas