Install the Netbeands

Mount the file system which is the existing WDK based application you want to customize..

In the "File systems" view right click and select "Mount" --> "Local Directory" and navigate to the TOP LEVEL directory for the web application you wish to work on.

e.g. C:\tomcat-4.1.29\webapps\webtop

Click finish

If you have done this correctly, in the "Filesystems" view you should see two "drive" icons.

1) the root directory of the webapp. in this case

C:\tomcat-4.1.29\webapps\webtop,

2) the location of the WDK classes and packages used by the webapp: in my case

C:\tomcat-4.1.29\webapps\webtop: /WEB-INF/classes

I also find various jar files mounted as the result of this process: ldapfilt.jar, ldapjdk.jar, regexp.jar, and webwfdserver.jar.

If you now look on the Project Mapped tab of the Project Explorer window you will see the project mapped view of this project. This is a simpler view and is the easiest place to work from. If you decide to mount other local directories outside the web application, they will show up in the "Filesystems" view but not the project mapped view.

The only remaining thing to do in order to be able to customize the application is to mount the remaining required DFC jar files.

In the "Filesystems" view, right click on the Filesystems label and select "Mount" --> "Archive Files" and navigate to the DFC related jar files in from C:\Program Files\Documentum\Shared directory.

Highlight each jar file you wish to mount (you can mount all of them to be safe).

You should be able to edit and compile JSP pages and java classes at this point.

To DEBUG these pages you have to add some startup parameters to the JVM when starting your application server. In my case, I am using Tomcat, and the changes to the catalina.bat file are as follows:

set CATALINA_OPTS=-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,address=9090,suspend=n

After starting Tomcat you can then connect to this application server instance from NetBeans.

From the NetBeans select the menu: "Debug" --> "Start Session" --> "Attach" and the Tomcat session on the port (9090) you defined in the startup parameters should appear. Select OK and you are ready to debug the application. You can set breakpoints, step through code, examine parameter values, etc. from NetBeans.

Note: If you install a WDK based application subsequently to makeing these changes to catalina.bat, the CATALINA_OPTS line in the new catalina.bat file will be corrupted and tomcat will fail to start. (See bug 141004).  So you will need to repair the new catalina.bat file from the backup copy that gets created, in order for Tomcat to start properly again.