How to migrate from a NetBeans project into Java CI with Maven in GitHub?

Question

I have a couple of mature projects developed in NetBeans. I want to stop using NetBeans and migrate into a Java CI with Maven in GitHub, so that every time a commit is pushed, a JAR file is created in GitHub. I would also like to keep history in git.

Answer 1

Successfully accomplished that manually by doing this:

1. Get rid of all NetBeans' crap. Delete nbproject/*, build.xml, manifest.mf, ...

2. Correct src to include main/java. My NetBeans projects sources were stored under src/package_name, while in Maven src/main/java/package_name.

3. Added Maven's POM.xml

4. Added GitHub's workflow file .github/workflows/maven.yml, including path to main class to make the JAR file runnable as per this answer

Commit and push those changes into GitHub and your JAR file will be magically created under Actions.

---

File .github/workflow/maven.yml

# This workflow will build a Java project with Maven
# For more information see: https://help.github.com/actions/language-and-framework-guides/building-and-testing-java-with-maven

name: Java CI with Maven

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master ]

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Set up JDK 1.8
      uses: actions/setup-java@v1
      with:
        java-version: 1.8
    - name: Build with Maven
      run: mvn -B package --file pom.xml
    - run: mkdir staging && cp target/*.jar staging
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v1
      with:
        name: Package
        path: staging

---

File pom.xml (edit to fit your project)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>your_id</groupId>
    <artifactId>your_artifact_id</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
    </properties>
    <build>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
          <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
          <configuration>
            <archive>
              <manifest>
                <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                <mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
              </manifest>
            </archive>
          </configuration>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </build>
</project>