Now that we have created the main class, we need to add the Bukkit API as the library for the project. You may recall, as discussed in the previous chapter, that the API includes the code that we can access to modify the Spigot server. You built the API JAR file when you built the Spigot jar in Chapter 1, Deploying a Spigot Server. If needed, refer to this chapter to retrieve the Bukkit.jar file. You will want to move it to a more permanent location. I suggest that you create a folder named Libraries and place the JAR file in this folder. The filename will most likely have a version appended to it. We will rename this file, which is similar to what we did for spigot.jar. This will help us easily update it in the future. Therefore, the new location of the bukkit.jar file will be similar to C:UsersOwnerDocumentsNetBeansProjectsLibrariesukkit.jar. Remember your file location because, now that we have the Bukkit API, we can create a library for it in NetBeans.
In NetBeans, inside the Projects tab, you will see a Libraries folder. When you right-click on it, you will be presented with the Add Library... option. Click on it to bring up a list of the current libraries, as shown in the following screenshot:
For the first project, we need to create the Bukkit library by performing the following steps. For future projects, it will already be present and we can simply select it:
- Click on Create... and type Bukkit as the Library Name.
- In the next window, there is an Add JAR/Folder... button. Click on it to locate and add the
bukkit.jarfile. - Leave the Sources tab empty and then click on the Javadoc tab.
- Add https://hub.spigotmc.org/javadocs/spigot/ in this tab and click on OK. This allows us to read some parts of the API documentation directly in the IDE.
Now, you will be able to select Bukkit as a library and add it to the project.
Note
Note that in order to update to a newer version of Bukkit, you can simply replace the current bukkit.jar file with the new one, just as you would do to update the spigot.jar file on your server. No additional modifications need to be done to your existing projects. However, you will have to compile the code in these projects to check whether any new errors are presented.