Java Project Templates

See Also

For each type of Java application, the IDE provides two types of project templates:

Standard Project Templates

With standard project templates, the IDE controls all aspects of how your application is built, run, and debugged. You set a project's source folder, classpath, and other project settings when creating the project and in the Project Properties dialog box. The IDE generates an Ant build script in which all of your settings are stored.

The IDE comes with the following standard templates:

Free-Form Project Templates

With free-form project templates, the IDE relies on your existing Ant script for instructions on how to compile, run, and debug your applications. The settings you configure in the New Project wizard when creating a project as well as in the Project Properties dialog box are used to tell the IDE how your Ant script manages your source code and must be consistent with the settings in your Ant script.

For example, all classpath elements are handled by your Ant script. When you declare the classpath for a free-form project, you are only telling the IDE which classes to make available for code completion and refactoring. These settings do not affect the actual classpath used when compiling or running your source code.

Free-form projects can contain as many source folders as your Ant script is configured to handle. If your Ant script does not contain targets for all IDE actions, like debugging and running your project, you can easily write Ant targets for these actions.

The standard distribution of the IDE contains the following free-form project templates:

See Also
About Standard Projects
About Free-Form Projects
Creating a Java Project
Creating a Web Application Project
Creating an Enterprise Application Project
Creating an EJB Module Project
Creating an Enterprise Application Client
About Packaged Archive Projects
About Creating Modules
Importing an Eclipse or JBuilder Project
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