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Installation Guide

Prerequisites

Requirement Version
NetBeans IDE 23.0 (RELEASE230) or later
Java 17 (required; Java 25 is not supported)
Maven 3.6+
Git any recent version

Required JVM flags (NetBeans 23+ / Java 17+)

The plugin uses sun.misc.Unsafe and reflection APIs that are encapsulated by default in Java 17+. Without these flags, opening any .kt file triggers ExceptionInInitializerError in AtomicFieldUpdater and the Kotlin environment never loads.

Apply these flags before launching NetBeans for the first time with the plugin.

User configuration (no sudo required — recommended)

# Replace 27 with your NetBeans major version (check Help → About)
NB_VERSION=27
mkdir -p ~/.netbeans/${NB_VERSION}/etc
cat >> ~/.netbeans/${NB_VERSION}/etc/netbeans.conf << 'EOF'
netbeans_default_options="$netbeans_default_options -J--add-opens=java.base/java.lang.reflect=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=jdk.unsupported/sun.misc=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=java.base/java.util.concurrent.atomic=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=java.base/jdk.internal.misc=ALL-UNNAMED"
EOF

Verify:

grep "add-opens" ~/.netbeans/${NB_VERSION}/etc/netbeans.conf

System-wide configuration (requires sudo)

sudo sed -i \
  's|-J--add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED|-J--add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=java.base/java.lang.reflect=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=jdk.unsupported/sun.misc=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=java.base/java.util.concurrent.atomic=ALL-UNNAMED -J--add-opens=java.base/jdk.internal.misc=ALL-UNNAMED|' \
  /usr/lib/apache-netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf

Download

Download the latest .nbm file from GitHub Releases.

Intermediate builds between releases are available as artifacts on the Actions page — open the latest successful workflow run and download the nbm artifact (delivered as a zip file; extract the .nbm before installing).

Install into NetBeans

  1. Open NetBeans → Tools → Plugins
  2. Switch to the Downloaded tab
  3. Click Add Plugins… and select the .nbm file
  4. Click Install and follow the wizard (accept the license when prompted)
  5. Restart NetBeans when prompted

Build from source

Step 1. Clone the repository

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/nbplugins/NetbeansPluginKotlin.git
cd NetbeansPluginKotlin

Step 2. Populate the local Maven repository

The plugin depends on bundled JARs that are not published to Maven Central. Install them once:

bash setup-local-repo.sh

Re-run this script any time a JAR in lib/ is updated.

Step 3. Build the plugin

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-temurin-jdk mvn clean package -DskipTests

The .nbm file is produced at target/kotlin-netbeans-*.nbm.

Step 4. Install in NetBeans

  1. Open NetBeans IDE.
  2. Go to Tools → Plugins.
  3. Switch to the Downloaded tab.
  4. Click Add Plugins… and select the .nbm file from target/.
  5. Click Install and follow the wizard (accept the license when prompted).
  6. Restart NetBeans when asked.

Verify the installation

  1. Restart NetBeans after adding the JVM flags.
  2. Open or create a .kt file — you should see Kotlin syntax highlighting and code completion.

If the editor shows plain text with no highlighting, check the log:

grep -i "kotlin\|AtomicFieldUpdater\|ExceptionInInitializerError" \
    ~/.netbeans/<version>/var/log/messages.log | tail -30

Common causes:

Symptom Cause Fix
No highlighting, ExceptionInInitializerError in log Missing --add-opens flags Add the JVM flags and restart
Build fails with NoSuchMethodError Local Maven repo not populated Run bash setup-local-repo.sh
Build fails with wrong Java version error Wrong JAVA_HOME Set JAVA_HOME to Java 17

Running tests

# Full test suite
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-temurin-jdk mvn clean test

# Single test class
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-temurin-jdk mvn test -Dtest=ClassName

Tests require a display. On headless servers, Xvfb is started automatically by Maven on display :99.