Getting started with your Java.net project

last update: Sept 13, 2005

So you're interested in starting your own Java.net project? Good for you! This page begins a Start-up Kit intended to give Project Owners and Project Owners-to-be help getting started.

Requesting your project | Page contents | Templates | Toolbars |
Formatting text | Wiki | Publicity | Feedback

Requesting your project

Obviously, the first step is to request your project. You do that using the Java.net Project Request Form after you've come up with your great idea that you want to share with the rest of the Java.net Community.

Minimum Requirements

All projects hosted on java.net must meet these minimum requirements in order to be approved:

• Project Description - Your project home page must include a detailed explanation of of your project, including:
  • The project's mission and goals.
  • How to contact you.
  • How to participate - Are you accepting roles and which one?
  • Skills required to work on your project.
  • Help Wanted - If you are looking for help then specify the type of help you are looking for.
• Source Code - Projects without sourcecode that meet the above requirement can be approved. They will be put in an incubator until source code is loaded. Requests with source code will get a higher priority.

Page Contents

The home page of your project is the first page most visitors will see. So it's important that you give users plenty of information on this page about your project. Helping them understand what you are trying to do can help people get involved in development and discussions. A well-designed home page can also help users quickly find current documentation or downloads in your project.

To help you get started, this page provides samples or links to page templates, style samples and sample toolbars for you to use when developing your project home page. By clearly explaining your project, you help users to quickly orient themselves to what your project is about and why they may be interested. Information that you may chose to offer includes:

• What are your project goals?
• Do you have expected outputs?
• What are your project milestones or schedule?
• Who are the primary developers or drivers of this project? Why are they interested in this project? (suggestion: provide a link for questions, comments)
• How can other users participate in the project? (provide links to mailing lists, discussion forums, wiki's or blogs)
• Are you looking for volunteers? (give examples of what type of help you are looking for)
• Who is the intended audience for this project? (new/intermediate/experienced developers, corporate IT, etc.)
• Any related links?

Sample Templates

If you'd like to get a jump start on your home page, copy one of these two templates into your project space. It must be named index.html in your project's www directory. Edit the file's html to reflect your project.

• template #1 - with graphic toolbar
• template #2 - from jxta.org

Toolbars

Graphic version

java.net java-net project forums blogs wiki faq

This graphic is made up a number of small graphic images, placed together in a table layout. You can use as many pieces as you need for your project. You will need to change button labels and destination urls. To use this toolbar:

• Use CVS to download this project.
• Edit this page either on your local copy or by using View source in your project.
• Copy out the table and paste the code into your home page (index.html).
• Copy the gif files from your local copy of this project into your own project.
• Add or delete extra button components so that your tool bar has the correct number of buttons for your project.
• Edit the href tags to go to the appropriate destination url.
• Edit the gif labels to reflect the appropriate destinations.
• Use the CVS "add" command to add them to your project.
• Use the CVS "commit" command to commit both the graphics and your updated home page.

| java.net | project home | forum | blog | wiki | faq |

This toolbar is simply text links separated by the horizontal bar character. You can edit this to use different separators if you like.

Text Tips

In general, we recommend keeping your page elements simple. SourceCast does use site-wide style sheets, which you should not override.

HTML references

Here are some useful references for developing HTML pages:

• HTML from W3C
• HTML Tidy to clean-up code
• HTML for Project Pages FAQ

Advanced style tinkering

So that's the basics. If you want to experiment with more style effects, please see online help for more information.

About CVS

You can find information on how to set-up CVS by logging into your account. Then go to Version control using the left navigation bar. Use the CVS client setup instruction that works for you.

If you are looking for more information on CVS see Open Source Development with CVS by Fogel and Bars.

Using a wiki

Java.net hosts a TWiki to be used by our community. You can use the wiki to share information about your project and about yourself. Things that you can do include:

• Create a wiki for your project off of your community's wiki. If your project doesn't belong to a community that has a wiki, you can set your wiki up in the Project wiki.
• Create your own people page telling folks about you and also make sure you tell them about your project too!

Tell the World

Once you have your project up, you'll want to tell the world - also known as marketing or publicity. Here are some ideas of things that you can do to let others know how cool your project really is:

• Publicize your Project
• If you are looking for new members, consider posting an ad on the Help Wanted page.
• If your project has some sort of an event or gathering, tell the java.net community using the Events page.
• RSS feeds.
  • Take advantage of the different rss feeds generated in your project space.
  • If you have a wiki set up, you can create an RSS feed so that other sites can pull your wiki updates. To do this, simply put the name of your wiki in this string, https://wiki.java.net/bin/view/wiki_name/WebRss?skin=rss. Then post a link to your rss feed on your project home page. Here's an example: https://wiki.java.net/bin/view/Javapedia/WebRss?skin=rss.
  • Want to incorporate other RSS feeds into your page? Use an RSS news feed such as Feedroll. Enter the feed name and display info. Feedroll generates the JavaScript. Cut and paste this into the your project's html page.
• Tracking project activity: You can get Apache log files for your project by using the Logger Project. Use standard web traffic reporting tools or create your own script to track how users are accessing your project.

Feedback

If you need additional help getting started with your project page, use any of these options:

• Java.net discussion forums: Use for general questions about developing your project contents
• Community Leaders: Each java.net community has one of more leaders. You can find contact information on the community's home page.
• Feedback: Use for specific questions that do not warrant public discussion

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