Hi Jarda, Thanks for writing this up. I fully support the direction.
"Open everything in the repository" is what most developers new to NetBeans expect, due to their experience with other IDEs and making it the default path seems like the right call. Groups have always been useful but hard to discover, so giving them a modern face as "workspaces" in the File menu feels like a natural evolution. Experts lose nothing, and everyone else gets a much smoother first experience. There's one more benefit worth mentioning. A well-defined workspace makes life easier for tooling that operates on "the current set of projects", such as indexing, project-wide refactorings, and increasingly AI agents and other external tools that may want to talk to the IDE. A predictable "everything in this folder is open" state removes a lot of guesswork there. The PoC PR as a vehicle for line comments is a good idea. I'll take a closer look at #9631 and #9650 and leave feedback there. Looking forward to seeing this land this autumn! Cheers, Toni Am 01.10.26, 14:28 schrieb "Jaroslav Tulach" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>: ## Motivation Let me restate the [motivation](https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/ <https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/> 9592#issuecomment-5536255861) I have for creating requests like for https:// github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/9631 and similar PRs that I am going to propose this autumn. ### Being for Experts NetBeans has a unique concept of handling projects. It is a completely different workflow than other IDEs are built around. I like it because it is flexible. However it also complicates things - because it is flexible. Projects are stored in Git repositories these days. When opening such a project, it (almost all the time) makes sense to **open all the projects** in the Git repository. That's not a NetBeans philosophy. NetBeans allows one to _cherry pick and open only some of the projects_. ### Being Different Such a flexibility makes NetBeans an IDE for experts. However it also comes with a cost. Not only implementation wise (IDE has to be ready for set of projects being "half open" which causes issues like https://github.com/apache/ <https://github.com/apache/> netbeans/pull/9622), but also from a UX perspective. Every "expert" has different set of subprojects open and then the behavior of the IDE is different. Such a _"magical flexibility"_ makes the UX poor. Other IDEs have a **concept of workspace**. When opening Apache Maven sources in a "workplace", then the IDEs just open all the nested projects in the Apache Maven Git repository. ### Simplify UI. Keep Flexibility. I believe the time has come to straighten the NetBeans IDE position by adjusting to common UX while keeping the flexibility under neath. NetBeans already has a support for [groups of projects](https://cwiki.apache.org/ <https://cwiki.apache.org/> confluence/download/attachments/446071397/image-2026-8-18_8-37-16.png? version=1&modificationDate=1787035037000&api=v2). Just the UX feels old fashioned and like a second class citizen. I'd like to improve the UX by using the same infrastructure to **mimic the concept of a "workspace"**. Ideally I'd like to rework the _File_ menu to offer [Open/Close Folder, Add to Workspace, Save Workspace as](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/download/attachments/ <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/download/attachments/> 446071397/image-2026-8-18_8-39-37.png? version=1&modificationDate=1787035178000&api=v2) just like the pictured _File_ menu provides. ### TL;DR Experts _"in the know"_ can still _Open Project..._ one by one and _work only with a properly curated and selected subset_. However for clueless users working on an unfamiliar code base, I believe we have to lead the UX towards **open all the projects** at once. That is the outline of my plan. Let's simplify the NetBeans UX while keeping its flexibility this autumn! -jt PS: The proof of concept PR: https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/9631 <https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/9631> is unlikely to ever get merged, but it allows us to **add line comments** at appropriate pieces. PPS: Cherry picked parts of that PoC PR may be proposed as their own PRs like: https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/9650 <https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/9650> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
