Question

What is the proper preferedID for the Netbeans Projects TopComponent? I created a small module to help with a project however I need a button in the module to trigger when a certain subnode is highlighted in the Projects Pane. Using Utilities.actionsGlobalContext() will not help since the button is in another module and simply redeclaring a value to keep the most recent subNode that was selected is not ideal. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, you want to be able to perform an Action (of a button) that exists in another module?

One way to do this would be to register your (button’s) action in your module’s layer file:

...
<folder name="SomeFolder">
    <folder name="MyActions">
        <file name="com-my-Action.instance">
            <attr name="delegate" newvalue="com.my.Action"/>
            <attr name="displayName" bundlevalue="com.my.Bundle#MYACTION_DIPLAYNAME"/>
            ...
        </file>
    </folder>
</folder>

And then using Utilities.actionsForPath(string) look this action up:

List<? extends Action> actions = Utilities.actionsForPath("SomeFolder/MyActions");
Action myAction = null;
for (Action action : a) {
    if (action.getValue(Action.NAME).equals("My Action Display Name")) {
        myAction = action;
        break;
    }
}
// use the action
myAction.actionPerformed(null);

See Also

javadoc for Utilities.actionsForPath(string)