This was done using NetBeans 7, which comes bundeled with Maven 3, needed to build James 3. + Older versions of NetBeans should be able to build James fine, provided that you configure them to use an instance of Maven 3, if they do not have it. + I used james 3.0-beta1 release and it builded in 7:40 min on my notebook running Debian Squeeze. +
+ +Building James with NetBeans is very easy as it comes with Subersion and Maven support already build in. + Maven is bundeled with the IDE, but Subverion is not, so you will have to install Subversion yourself and NetBeans will be able to use it. + You can get more details on how to install and where to get Subversion from the NetBeans Help menu by clicking on Help Contents and from there go to the IDE Basics->Version Control and File Hierarchy->Subversion topic. +
+For Linux users, Subversion is probably packaged by your distribution so use your distribution tools to install it (aptitude, yum, etc.)
+Once you have Subversion, go to Team->Subversion->Checkout menu entry.
+ You will see an dialog window used to enter the information about the Subversion repository you are going to use. It looks like this:
+ 
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+ In the Repository URL field enter the location for James repository and click Next.
+ You can use the following URL to get the trunk or developement version:
+ http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/james/server/trunk.
+ After this you will be presented with another dialog window where you can configure which folders to check out and where to save them on your machine.
+ 
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+ If you supplied the above URL you can click Finish to get trunk version and start hacking.
+ You can choose another folder by clicking Browse. A new dialog window will open and from there you cand browse
+ the whole subversion repository. I wanted to build James 3.0beta so I choosed james-serve-3.0-beta1 under james/server/tags/ folder.
+ 
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+
After you click Finish NetBeans will checkout the sources. It will detect the Maven project and ask you if you wish to open the project.
+ If you open the project you will see in the Projects Window (CTRL+1 if not visible) something similar to the next image:
+ 
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+
Building the project does not require too much work. Just go to Run->Build Project menu option.
+ Make sure that James is the main project (if you have other projects open) or NetBeans will build that project instead of James.
+ Once the build is finished you will find the binary distribution in container-spring/target directory.
+ 
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+