Here are some documentation about integrating equinox in the Netbeans platform-based GUI. After testing to patch netigso, Jaroslav has published NetBinox that accomplish equinox integration into NBP. See our tests with Netbinox.

References

• "Alien invasion" blog post by Toni Epple
• "Ant-based clustering of alien" blog post by Geertjan
• General doc on Netbeans wiki
• Doc on modules import on Netbeans wiki
• Issue list for netigso
• Eclipse docs about runtime
• Discussion thread about Equinox launching programmatically

Attempt to patch Netigso

Here are notes about my first attemps with felix-based netigso.

• Retrieve netisgo with mercurial

  hg clone http://hg.netbeans.org/netigso/ netigso/
  

• Build the platform

  cd netigso; ant build -Dpermit.jdk6.builds=true
  

• Replace Felix jar by Equinox jar and remove binaries-list file to prevent felix.jar download at each build.

  wget -O core.netigso/external/felix.jar 'http://download.eclipse.org/equinox/drops/M20090824-0800/org.eclipse.osgi_3.5.1.R35x_v20090817.jar'
  rm core.netigso/external/binaries-list
  

• Adapt NetigsoModuleFactory.java code to use equinox (Diff). Some interesting equinox classes:
  • org.eclipse.osgi.launch.EquinoxFactory
  • org.osgi.framework.launch.Framework
  • TODO how to put NetigsoActivator in equinox ? Is it needed ?
• TODO Adapt the method join in NetigsoActivator.java
• Rebuild the platform

  cd netigso; ant build -Dpermit.jdk6.builds=true
  

• Test the module
  • Add the platform built in netigso/nbbuild/netbeans/ in your Netbeans IDE through the menu Tools -> NetBeans Platform
  • Create a new NetBeans Platform Application and choose in the wizard the previous added platform
  • Create a new module in this application, and add in the properties the library NetBeans OSGi integration
  • TODO

State

I use this code to give equinox to netigso:

            Map<String,Object> configMap = new HashMap<String,Object>();
            // Add core OSGi packages to be exported from the class path
            // via the system bundle.
            configMap.put(Constants.FRAMEWORK_SYSTEMPACKAGES,
                    "org.osgi.framework; version=1.4.0," +
                    "org.osgi.service.packageadmin; version=1.2.0," +
                    "org.osgi.service.startlevel; version=1.1.0," +
                    "org.osgi.util.tracker; version=1.3.3," +
                    "org.osgi.service.url; version=1.0.0");
            configMap.put(Constants.FRAMEWORK_STORAGE_CLEAN, "onFirstInit");
            activator = new NetigsoActivator();
            List<BundleActivator> activators = new ArrayList<BundleActivator>();
            activators.add(activator);
            configMap.put("felix.systembundle.activators", activators);
            System.setProperty("osgi.install.area","/home/dumoulin/tmp/eclipse/");
            configMap.put("osgi.install.area","/home/dumoulin/tmp/eclipse/");
            EquinoxFactory ef = new EquinoxFactory();
            equinoxFramework = ef.newFramework(configMap);
            equinoxFramework.init();

I've in /home/dumoulin/tmp/eclipse/ an equinox environment exported from Eclipse that works when launching from a shell with the command java -jar plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.200.v20090520.jar.

But, I've this exception:

java.lang.NullPointerException
        at java.io.File.<init>(File.java:305)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.internal.baseadaptor.BaseStorage.getBundleContent(BaseStorage.java:656)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.internal.baseadaptor.BaseStorage.createBundleFile(BaseStorage.java:665)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.BaseAdaptor.createBundleFile(BaseAdaptor.java:466)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.BaseData.getBundleFile(BaseData.java:394)
        at org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.BaseData.getEntry0(BaseData.java:111)
        at org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.BaseData.getEntry(BaseData.java:102)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.AbstractBundle.getEntry0(AbstractBundle.java:1232)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.Framework.findInSystemBundle(Framework.java:558)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.Framework.findVMProfile(Framework.java:504)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.Framework.loadVMProfile(Framework.java:420)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.Framework.initialize(Framework.java:224)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.Framework.<init>(Framework.java:157)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.EquinoxLauncher.internalInit(EquinoxLauncher.java:68)
        at 
org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.EquinoxLauncher.init(EquinoxLauncher.java:38)
        at org.eclipse.osgi.launch.Equinox.init(Equinox.java:89)
        at 
org.netbeans.core.netigso.NetigsoModuleFactory.getContainer(NetigsoModuleFactory.java:180)

After some investigation, the exception is thrown because the equinox bundle (org.eclipse.osgi) has a StorageHook with a null filename. The context is that in the class BaseStorage, the method getBundleContent(BaseData bundledata) is called from createBundleFile(Object , BaseData ), with

bundledata (SystemBundleData) = org.eclipse.osgi_3.6.0.20090825

Anton Epple has noticed that it seems that Equinox is not yet ready for this kind of muddle.