NetBeans 6.9.1 and Google App Engine

A couple of weeks ago David Chandler from Google gave a talk at the Greenville Java Users Group (GreenJUG) about Google App Engine. I was very impressed with the presentation and demo. I decided to explore a little with NetBeans and a plugin for GAE.

The NetBeans support for Google App Engine Plugin is a quick install and works on NetBeans 6.9.1. Once it is installed create a sample Guestbook application to enable the App Engine features. The complete functionality is not enabled until you use it like a number of other NetBeans plugins.

After you create the project you must modify the appengine-web.xml to point to a registered project on appengine for example guestbook and set the version.

Finally we deploy it by selecting the project and deploying it using the context menu. The first time you deploy an application it will prompt you for your login and password. It retains the values for future deployments.

That was easy! Once you get your first application deployed, you have opened the way for future development.