External Tools and Tasks
External Tools and Tasks
This page lists external resources for Apache Ant: tasks, Compiler Implementations, IDE integration tools, loggers, you name it. If you've written something that should be included, please post all relevant information to one of the mailing lists. For details, see the FAQ.
Nothing listed here is directly supported by the Ant developers, if you encounter any problems with them, please use the contact information.
Tasks
AJC
AspectJ is an aspect-oriented extension to Java. This task compiles a source tree using the AspectJ compiler -- AJC.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.eclipse.org/aspectj/ |
Contact: | project mailing lists |
License: | Apache Software License |
Anakia
Actually, Anakia is more than just an Ant task, it is a an XML transformation tool based on JDOM, Velocity and Ant.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 and later |
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URL: | http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/anakia.html |
Contact: | Velocity mailing lists |
License: | Apache Software License |
Anteater
Anteater is a set of Ant tasks for the functional testing of websites and web services (functional testing being; hit a URL and ensure the response meets certain criteria). Can test HTTP params, response codes, XPath, regexp and Relax NG expressions. Includes HTML reporting (based on junitreport) and a hierarchical grouping system for quickly configuring large test scripts.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 and later |
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URL: | http://aft.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | developer mailing list |
License: | Apache Software License |
Checkstyle
Checkstyle is a development tool to help programmers write Java code that adheres to a coding standard. Its purpose is to automate the process of checking Java code, and to spare humans of this boring (but important) task.
Checkstyle can be run via an Ant task or a command line utility.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4.1 and later |
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URL: | http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Oliver Burn |
License: | Starting with release 2.0 the license is the GNU Lesser General Public License. Prior releases were under the GNU General Public License. |
ChownTask
ChownTask is an Ant task to change ownership of files on Unix.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 and up |
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URL: | http://sourceforge.net/projects/chowntask/ |
Contact: | Wilfred Springer |
License: | GNU General Public License |
CleanImports
Removes unneeded imports. Formats your import sections. Flags ambiguous imports.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.euronet.nl/users/tomb/cleanImports/index.html |
Contact: | Tom Brus |
License: | Apache Software License |
Clover
Clover is an Ant-based Code Coverage tool. It can be used seamlessly with Ant-based projects. It provides method, statement, and branch coverage analysis, and has rich reporting in XML, HTML or via a Swing GUI.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4.1 or greater |
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URL: | http://www.thecortex.net/clover/ |
Contact: | clover-support@cortexebusiness.com.au |
License: | Commercial, free licenses available for open source projects. |
Configure
Recursive build support (call ant on every package level, and only build files in that package or in that package and everything below) with seperation of source and output.
The task generates build files in any subdirectory (except for CVS-directories) for you. Only place one build.xml file in the top and call target 'setup' or 'rescan'.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 and 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.dsdelft.nl/~lemval/ant/ |
Contact: | M.J.P. van Leeuwen |
License: | License derived from Apache Software License |
CVSGrab
A little CVS client that can be useful when people are behind corporate firewall that blocks any cvs communications. It uses the ViewCVS web interface to access the CVS repository via standard http, and downloads all the files present in it.
It works from the command line or as an Ant task.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 or higher |
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URL: | http://cvsgrab.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | CVSGrab user mailing list |
License: | LGPL |
Doxygen task
There are two Ant tasks for running the Doxygen documentation system.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.1 and later |
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URL: | http://www.bgw.org/projects/java/ant/ |
Contact: | Kyle R. Burton |
License: | Apache Software Foundation License |
and
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 and later |
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URL: | http://ant-doxygen.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Karthik A Kumar |
License: | Apache Software Foundation License |
GenJar
Builds a JAR file based on class dependencies rather than simply the contents of a directory
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 alpha (built after 2001/08/04) and later |
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URL: | http://genjar.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Jesse Stockall |
License: | Apache Software Foundation License |
Greebo
Greebo is an Ant-task for downloading dependency files (currently only jars) from a network to a specified directory, much like Maven. It supports multiple local and remote repositories with either flat or maven-like structures. It can read the dependency list from a Maven project file, a maven-like dependency file, or directly from the build.xml file.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 |
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URL: | http://greebo.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | project mailing lists |
License: | Apache Software License |
Importscrubber
Removes unnecessary import statements from a Java source code file.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 |
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URL: | http://importscrubber.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Tom Copeland |
License: | LGPL |
Interactive
Task allowing to run a dialog within a build used to setup some properties. This way you can fill a property with the input of a user.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://www.kasisoft.de/build/ant/interactive/ |
Contact: | Daniel Kasmeroglu |
License: | LGPL |
IsDirValidator
Checks whether a given directory structure conforms to certain rules that are defined via nested elements of the task.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 |
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URL: | http://isvalidator.sourceforge.net/en/isDirValidator.htm |
Contact: | Iñigo Serrano |
License: | GNU General Public License |
J2ME Ant Tasks
There are four different sets of tasks to help build Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) applications.
This set supports CLDC and the K Virtual Machine (KVM):
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.dribin.org/dave/j2me_ant/ |
Contact: | Dave Dribin |
License: | Apache Software License |
And this set works with the J2ME Wireless Toolkit and MIDP for PalmOS:
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.stampysoft.com/ant/ |
Contact: | Josh Eckels |
License: | MIT License |
With Antenna, you can compile, preverify, package, and obfuscate your MIDP applications, as well as convert them to PRC files designed to run on MIDP for PalmOS. The tasks are mostly built around the Wireless Toolkit and the free RetroGuard obfuscator, with some additional gimmicks like automatic version numbering.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4.1 or later |
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URL: | http://antenna.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Jörg Pleumann |
License: | GNU Lesser General Public License |
Antic is a freely available task for packaging J2ME applications. It produces both the Jar and Jad files in a single step. This allows *all* entries to be correclty set in the jad file, including the size of the jar file that is produced. This task has been used and tested extensively with Sun's Wireless Toolkit and also the Nokia SDK and emulators.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 |
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URL: | http://www.smartkey.co.uk/antic.html |
Contact: | smartkey.co.uk |
License: | GNU General Public License |
Jacson
Jacson is a configurable and plugable tool (much like Ant itself) to create filters for text (line based) files without programming.
Compatibility: | Jacson has been used and tested with 1.5.1, should work with 1.4+ |
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URL: | http://jacson.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | jacson-user@lists.sourceforge.de |
License: | GNU Library or Lesser General Public License |
Jalopy
An Ant Plug-in for the Java Source Code Formatter Jalopy.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 (or higher) |
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URL: | http://jalopy.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | http://jalopy.sf.net/contact.html |
License: | Starting with release 1.0 Beta 6 the license is the BSD License. Prior releases were under the GNU General Public License. |
Java+ Precompile Task
Java+ is an open source Java preprocessorthat adds these features to any Java compiler:
- Multi-line strings with executable inclusions like Perl and Ruby. It eliminates the need for JSP or ASP and their need for Java compilers on deployment servers (a security concern) while adding no overhead in either space or time.
- Optionally supports localization by segregating Java+ strings into ResourceBundle files with invarient keys based on the hash code of the strings's value. This is handled automatically and transparently; no intervention is required.
- Fast. Negligible impact on build times. By default, skips inputs whose outputs are up to date to avoid triggering recompilations.
- Pure Java code, portable to any platform, with graphical, shell and ant interfaces.
- Simple, general, recursive, digraph-driven string syntax. Digraph characters are user-selectable.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://virtualschool.edu/java+/ |
Contact: | Brad Cox |
License: | BSD-like License |
Java2Html
Uses the Java2Html library for converting java source files or snipplets to syntax highlighted html, rtf, tex and others.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 and later |
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URL: | http://www.java2html.de/ |
Contact: | java2html@jave.de |
License: | GNU General Public License |
Javamake
A task to compile Java sources and manage class file dependencies. Functionality is equivalent to that of standard Javac and Depend tasks combined, with improved dependency checking.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4.1 |
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URL: | http://www.experimentalstuff.com/Technologies/JavaMake/index.html |
Contact: | Mikhail Dmitriev |
License: | BSD-like License |
javarec
Ant tasks that generate record classes for VisualAge for Java from Cobol copy books.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 |
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URL: | http://glezen.org/javarec/ |
Contact: | Paul Glezen |
License: | Apache Software License |
JCSC
JCSC is a Java Coding Standard Checker which also features the generation of some code metrics. It is a command line tool with an Ant task to scan whole package trees. The result can viewed in an JavaDoc style web page.
Compatibility: | Ant >= 1.5 |
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URL: | http://jcsc.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Ralph Jocham |
License: | GNU General Public License |
JFlex
JFlex is a lexical analyzer generator (also known as scanner generator) for Java, written in Java.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 |
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URL: | http://jflex.de/ |
Contact: | jflex-users mailing list |
License: | GNU General Public License (GPL) |
Jing Task
Validates XML files against the RELAX NG alternative to XML Schema. The Jing task for Ant allows you to efficiently validate multiple files against multiple RELAX NG patterns and integrate RELAX NG validation with other XML processing.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and later |
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URL: | http://www.thaiopensource.com/relaxng/jing-ant.html |
License: | BSD-like |
jMetra
jMetra is a tool for collecting code metrics across a project lifecycle and compiling the results into JavaDoc-styled documentation to analyze project metrics over time. jMetra is best utilized by integrating it with your project's scheduled build process.
It works from the command line or using several provided Ant tasks.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and higher |
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URL: | http://www.jmetra.com/ |
Contact: | R Todd Newton |
License: | Commercial, free licenses for open source projects and evaluations. |
JMX4Ant
JMX4Ant provides tasks for integration with JMX (Java Management Extensions). It provides tasks for getting and setting attributes of MBeans, invoking their methods and much more.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and higher |
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URL: | http://jmx4ant.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Brian Dueck |
License: | Apache Software License 1.1 |
JNI
JNI is a free toolkit that makes easy work of integrating Java and C through the Java Native Interface (JNI). It includes a code generator that generates both Java "proxy" classes to access C "peer" classes, and C "proxy" classes to access Java "peer" classes or interfaces. It also includes a core library with a simplified JVM interface as well as "helper" classes to ease working with the JNI data types. The code generation is driven by an XML project file that can be created with the assistance of the GUI Project Manager. The code generation can be invoked either from Ant or from the GUI. Includes a comprehensive printable PDF User Guide and plenty of examples.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 |
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URL: | http://jnipp.sf.net/ |
Contact: | Phillip E. Trewhella |
License: | GNU LGPL |
JRun Ant Tasks
JRun 4 SP1 ships with lib/jrun-ant-tasks.jar, which defines three Ant tasks: jrun, jrunapp, and jrunjmx. Documentation for the tasks can be found in JRun under docs/ant/jrun.html.
Note that the service pack must be installed on top of an existing JRun 4 installation.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 or higher |
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URL: | http://dynamic.macromedia.com/bin/MM/software/trial/hwswrec.jsp?product=jrun_sp |
Contact: | Brian Deitte |
License: | Commercial |
Macker
A build-time architectural testing tool, designed to maintain clean layering / tiering / modularity. Macker works against compiled class files, checking dependencies between classes against a set of pattern-based access rules you specify for your project in an XML rules file. Macker doesn't presume anything about your architecture -- you write the rules, and Macker keeps you honest about them.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 and higher (1.4 untested but may work) |
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URL: | http://innig.net/macker/ |
Contact: | Paul Cantrell |
License: | GNU GPL 2.0 |
pack
pack is a task to build the smallest possible JAR to link and run one or more classes.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 |
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URL: | http://sadun-util.sourceforge.net/pack.html |
Contact: | Cristiano Sadun |
License: | GNU Lesser General Public License |
PMD
PMD checks Java source code for unused variables, unnecessary object creation, etc
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and higher |
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URL: | http://pmd.sf.net/ |
Contact: | Tom Copeland |
License: | Apache Software Foundation License |
Purge
Purge deletes all but the most recent few files from a fileset. For example: if you have generated files (logs, .ear, .war, .jar etc) accumulating in a directory, the purge task will allow you to delete the older files, keeping just the most recent ones.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 or above |
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URL: | http://www.dallaway.com/ant/ |
Contact: | Richard Dallaway |
License: | LGPL |
SerialVer
SerialVer adds the Java serialver functionality to Apache Ant. This project adds Tasks and FilterReaders to get, to insert and to modify the serialVersionUID in the source code of a serializable class.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5.1 and later |
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URL: | http://serialver.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | developer mailing list |
License: | Apache Software License |
SmartAnalyzer
Powerful analysis of dependencies between Java classes. Only affected classes will be recompiled and it can be used with any bytecode compiler.
Compatibility: | Apache Ant version 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://smartanalyzer.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | support at sourceforge project page |
License: | GNU General Public Licence (GPL) |
Styler
The styler task makes useful combinations of XSLT transformations easy to specify in an Ant build file. Like the built-in Ant task style, styler can apply a single transformation to a set of XML files. But it can also:
- handle multiple transformations, in parallel or pipelined.
- enable transformations that split or merge files
- process non-XML files, especially HTML (based on JTidy)
- apply non-XSLT transformation, especially "regular fragmentations"
- use any custom XMLReader or XMLFilter class to handle new file formats and transformation techniques.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 |
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URL: | http://www.langdale.com.au/styler/ |
Contact: | Arnold deVos |
License: | LGPL |
Syntax
Transforms source files into HTML documents with syntax highlighting. It can handle a variety of source files including Java, HTML, C/C++, SQL, and Java properties. Colors for elements are specified using cascading style sheets. The output can be templated for easy integration with a site's look and feel.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 |
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URL: | http://ostermiller.org/syntax/ant.html |
Contact: | Stephen Ostermiller |
License: | GNU General Public License (GPL) |
Tidy Imports (Tim)
Tim is a handy utility that can be executed on the command line or via Ant that automatically formats your import declarations. Tim is capable of removing unused imports, expanding or collapsing imports and even organising them into pre-determined groups.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 and later |
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URL: | http://www.chive.com/tim.htm |
Contact: | support@chive.com |
License: | Commercial |
TiniAnt
TiniAnt is an Ant task to support building applications for the TINI.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 to 1.4.1 |
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URL: | http://tiniant.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Sean Kelly |
License: | BSD-like license |
Venus Application Publisher's (Vamp) Ant Task Suite
Venus Application Publisher's (Vamp) Ant Task Suite allows you to sign and package your applications into relocatable Web Archives that you can drop into your web server for single-click launching using Java Web Start or into single Java Archive installers that serve up their content through a built-in, multi-threaded, ultra light-weight web server.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 and 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.geocities.com/vamp201/ant.html |
Contact: | Gerald Bauer |
License: | GNU General Public License |
Version_Tool
A versioning tool for Ant.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://ant.ryangrier.com/ |
Contact: | version_tool@ryangrier.com |
License: | BSD license |
VPP
VPP provides general file preprocessing support based on the Velocity Template Engine. The core funtionality is provided as a filter for use with tasks that supports filter chains. Also included are replacement tasks for <copy> and <javac> that integrate support for preprocessing.
Compatibility: | 1.5.1 and above |
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URL: | http://vpp.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | vpp-user@lists.sourceforge.net |
License: | BSD license |
WOProject
WOProject provides a set of tools to work with WebObjects 5.1 independent from platform and IDE. It significantly improves developer productivity and makes complex project structures more flexible compared to traditional Makefile-based approach.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 |
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URL: | http://objectstyle.org/woproject/ |
Contact: | Andrus Adamchik |
License: | Apache license |
XDoclet
XDoclet is an extended Javadoc Doclet engine for use in Ant. It lets you create custom Javadoc @tags and based on those tags generates source code or other files (such as xml-ish deployment descriptors). Templates and matching tasks are provided to generate EJB and web application deployment descriptors.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 |
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URL: | http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdoclet/ |
License: | BSD license |
XInclude
XInclude is a W3C standardized vocabulary for including arbitrary text or XML documents in other XML documents. This task perfomes the inclusion using an existing XInclude implementation
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5.2 |
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URL: | http://www.jeckle.de/freeStuff/xia/index.html |
Contact: | mario@jeckle.de |
License: | Lesser GNU Public License |
XmlTask
XmlTask provides a simple means to modify XML documents without having to learn XSLT. A simple path reference to an XML node specifies the node you want to change, and how you want to allow XML insertion and removal, or attribute changes. The emphasis is on providing the simplest means to perform common XML replacements
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and later |
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URL: | http://www.oopsconsultancy.com/software/xmltask.html |
Contact: | xmltask@oopsconsultancy.com |
License: | GNU General Public License |
yGuard
yGuard is a free Java(TM) Bytecode Obfuscator Task that needs no external script or project files. It can completely be configured and run through the Ant build script. The task supports multiple Jar files at once and makes use of patternsets and regular expressions to specify elements, which should be left unobfuscated. Additionally it can be used to produce patches for obfuscated applications that have already been deployed.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 and later |
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URL: | http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yguard_about.htm |
Contact: | yGuard@yWorks.com |
License: | Library: LGPL, Task: Commercial |
Compiler Implementations
Generics (JSR14) Early-Access Compiler Adapter
This is an Ant compiler-adapter that allows you to use the
normal <javac>
task plus Sun's early-access
compiler to compile Generics-enabled Java code. (This is only
necessary until JDK1.5 is released.)
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5 and later |
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URL: | http://www.madbean.com/blog/3/ |
Contact: | Matt Quail <spud[at]madbean[dot]com> |
License: | Public Domain |
miniRMI <rmic>
implementation
miniRMI is a freeware opensource library that serves as a
lightweight replacement for the original java.rmi packages and
is suitable especially for applets. Ant 1.4+
<rmic>
adapter included.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and later |
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URL: | http://dione.zcu.cz/~toman40/miniRMI/ |
Contact: | Petr Toman |
License: | Gnu Lesser Public License |
IDE and Editor Integration
AntFarm
A plugin that integrates Ant into the jEdit editor.
Compatibility: | bundles Ant 1.5 |
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URL: | http://plugins.jedit.org/plugins/?AntFarm |
Contact: | jEdit developers mailinglist |
License: | Apache Software License |
AntMan
An AddIn that integrates Ant with the JDeveloper IDE
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4.1 |
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URL: | http://www.erudra.com/antman/index.html |
Contact: | Ashok Sridhar |
License: | GNU General Public License |
AntRunner
An OpenTool that integrates Ant into the JBuilder IDE.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 and 1.3 |
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URL: | http://antrunner.sourceforge.net/ |
Contact: | Dieter Bogdoll |
License: | GNU General Public License |
AntWork
A plugin that integrates Ant into the Jext editor.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 and 1.3 |
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URL: | ftp://jext.sourceforge.net/pub/jext/plugins/AntWork.zip |
Contact: | Klaus Hartlage |
License: | GNU General Public License |
Eclipse
Eclipse is a universal tool platform with Ant integration.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.3 - 1.4.1 |
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URL: | http://www.eclipse.org/ |
Contact: | news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.tools |
License: | Common Public License Version 1.0 |
Gel
Java IDE with support for Ant. Gel is a native Microsoft Windows software.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.4 and above |
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URL: | http://www.gexperts.com/gel.html |
Contact: | Project Mailing List |
License: | Freeware |
HP RadPak
RadPak comes with the (free) HP Bluestone HPAS J2EE server, and is primarily a GUI tool for packaging and deploying java web and EJB applications as WAR and EAR files. The tool is ant based, and can be used with as a GUI for general ant development, providing form based entry of task attributes, and an animated display of task execution.
Compatibility: | bundles Ant 1.3 and docs; adds a jar of extra tasks to any existing ant installation under ANT_HOME |
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URL: | http://www.bluestone.com/products/hp-as/ |
License: | Proprietary but free to download |
IntelliJ IDEA 2.0
Java IDE with refactoring support and Ant integration.
Compatibility: | bundles Ant 1.3 |
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URL: | http://www.intellij.com/idea/ |
Contact: | support@intellij.com |
License: | Commercial |
JBuilder 8 Enterprise
JBuilder 8 Enterprise and "Performance Bundle" come with built-in Ant support. JBuilder 8 Personal and SE don't support Ant directly, but an OpenTool is available for them.
Compatibility: | Bundles Ant 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/index.html |
Contact: | customer_service@borland.com |
License: | Commercial |
JDE(E) 2.2.8
The Java Development Environment for Emacs (JDEE) supports Apache Ant as one of three built-in ways to build your applications.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.2 and later |
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URL: | http://jde.sunsite.dk/ |
Contact: | JDEE Mailing list. |
License: | GNU General Public License |
NetBeans / Sun ONE Studio
A module that integrates Ant into the NetBeans or Sun ONE Studio (formerly Forte for Java) IDEs.
Compatibility: | bundles Ant 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://ant.netbeans.org/ |
Contact: | nbdev@netbeans.org |
License: | Sun Public License |
Oracle9i JDeveloper
Java IDE with support for Ant.
Compatibility: | Ant 1.5.1 |
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URL: | http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/ |
Contact: | jdeveloperbeta_us@oracle.com |
License: | Commercial |
WebSphere Studio Application Developer
WSAD features Ant integrate by virtue of being built on the Eclipse tools platform.
Compatibility: | bundles Ant 1.4.1 |
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Article: | Ant Integration Part1 |
License: | Commercial |