Configuring Ant

To view this form, select Tools > Options, select Miscellaneous, and click the Ant tab.

Ant Home. The installation directory of the Ant executable the SDK uses. To change Ant versions, type the full path to a new Ant installation directory in this field or click Browse to find the location. You can only switch between versions 1.5.3 and higher of Ant.The Ant installation directory must contain a lib/ subdirectory which contains the ant.jar binary. For example, for the standard Ant 1.7.1 release, the Ant installation directory is ant/lib/apache-ant-1.7.1. If you enter a directory that does not match this structure, the SDK gives you an error.You can also specify the following options:

Save All Modified Files Before Running Ant. If selected, saves all unsaved files in the SDK before running Ant. It is recommended to leave this property selected because modifications to files in the SDK are not recognized by Ant unless they are first saved to disk.

Reuse Output Tabs from Finished Processes. If selected, writes Ant output to a single Output window tab, deleting the output from the previous process. If not selected, opens a new tab for each Ant process.

Always Show Output. If selected, raises the Output window tab if the Ant output requires user input or contains a hyperlink. Output that contains hyperlinks usually denotes an error or warning. If not selected, the SDK displays the Output window for all Ant processes.

Verbosity Level. Sets the amount of compilation output. Set the verbosity lower to suppress informational messages or higher to get more detailed information.

Classpath. Contains binaries and libraries that are added to Ant’s classpath. Click Add Directory or Add JAR/ZIP to open the Classpath Editor.

Properties. Configures custom properties to pass to an Ant script each time you call Ant. Click Manage Properties to edit the properties in the property editor. This property is similar to the Ant command-line option, -Dkey=value. The following default properties are available:

${build.compiler.emacs}. If you are compiling using Jikes (build.compiler=jikes), setting this property to true enables Emacs-compatible error messages. It is recommended that you leave this property set to true even if you are not using Jikes, since the SDK prefers Emacs-compatible error messages.