Hi everyone, Thank you very much for the thoughtful replies. It's very helpful to hear about how others do things.
It sounds like I am probably making my life more difficult than it needs to be by choosing to use JPMS modules. Personally, I believe that as JPMS modules are adopted more and more by the Java ecosystem, and as everyone's Java version inexorably advances to Java 9 and beyond, it will become harder and harder to avoid dealing with JPMS modules in practice. Once you start using Java 9 or later, JPMS modules are there, and even if you try to avoid them, you'll probably bump into some problems related to automatic modules or unnamed modules or similar eventually... However, for now I get the impression that avoiding JPMS modules, if possible, is the path of least resistance in NetBeans. Maybe the problems I've had with the nbm-maven-plugin were because I was trying to explicitly make use of JPMS modules. I'll try again, this time avoiding explicitly using JPMS modules if I can, and see how it goes. Regarding how to build a stand-alone application: without the convenience of jlink (because JPMS modules are definitely required, at least in my specific case, to use jlink; it is possible that jlink can work without JPMS modules in other specific circumstances, but in my case that is not possible), I agree the only option is to probably create a custom script that does the jobs. It's good to know that I'm not missing something; that's about what I expected. Regarding the point about requiring a user to install Java separately, I think sometimes it could be appropriate, and sometimes not. Personally, I usually feel that it is an unnecessary hurdle and an additional maintenance burden. My users shouldn't even need to know they're running Java. It seems like a small thing, but it really is a significant hurdle in some contexts. I could be wrong, but it sounds like NetBeans Platform is pretty "opinionated" about this point, and it basically encourages you to require the user to install the JRE separately. However, I can see it isn't too hard to bundle a JRE yourself with a custom script if you really want to. I'll probably try to do that if I can. I appreciate all the helpful advice! -- Chris
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