Creating a new project

Once NetBeans is installed, open it for the first time and you will see the start page. You can exit the start page as it's of no importance to you. Open the File menu and click New Project.... We want to create a New Java Application which is selected by default, so simply click on Next. We must now name our first project. It is a good idea to avoid using spaces within a name. Let's name this project MyFirstBukkitPlugin. Unless you want to store your project in another location you can leave the default value of Project Location. Be sure that Create Main Class is checked. The main class is where we will put the code that is needed to enable our plugin. For this field you must determine the package of your project. This usually involves your website's domain name in reverse order. For example, Bukkit uses org.bukkit and I use com.codisimus. Assuming you don't have your own domain name, you can use your email address, for example com.gmail.username. You want to use something that will be unique. If two plugins were to have the same package then it might cause collisions in class names, and CraftBukkit will have no way to know which class you are referring to. Using an email address or a domain name that you own is a good way to ensure that other developers don't use the same package. For this reason, you should exclude bukkit or minecraft from your package name. The package should also be in lowercase as given in the previous examples. Once you have a package, you need to name your main class. To avoid confusion, most Bukkit plugin developers use the project name as the main class name. The name of the main class should start with a capital letter. The following screenshot is an example of how your forms should look before clicking on Finish: