INTViewer for Plugin Developers

Pre-Requirements

Development Environment

You need to have some Java development experience to create modules in INTViewer.

You can develop plugins on Windows, Linux or MacOS.

For 3D and cross plot visualizations, a graphics card compatible with OpenGL 3.2 or greater and its vendor-provided driver are required. MESA drivers typically provided with Linux distributions are not supported, make sure to use the vendor-provided driver instead for 3D and cross-plot visualization.

NetBeans is a free Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that is the required development platform for applications based upon INTViewer. You do not need to have prior experience with NetBeans to create modules in INTViewer as detailed walkthroughs are available. Use the "Java SE" version of NetBeans.

INTViewer 2019

To develop with INTViewer 2019, you need to have Java J2SE 1.8.0 (also called Java 8) or Java 11 installed on your computer (PC, Unix/Linux). Only 64 bit versions of Java can be used. You can also use OpenJDK 11.

The Java Development Kit (JDK) must be installed: while the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) can be used to run INTViewer, it cannot be used for development. To install the Oracle JDK of Java J2SE, go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.

INTViewer 2019 requires NetBeans 8.1 or greater. NetBeans 8.1 can be downloaded from https://netbeans.org/downloads/8.1/index.html (95 MB download for Windows). If you use Java 11, use Apache NetBeans 11 downloaded from https://netbeans.apache.org/download/index.html.

If you use Apache NetBeans 11, copy the file INTViewer\intviewer\modules\ext\jsearch-2.0_05.jar file to netbeans\harness\antlib. This file is needed to link dialogs to help pages, and is not provided with the NetBeans IDE for licensing reasons.

INTViewer 2018

To develop with INTViewer 2018, you need to have Java J2SE 1.8.0 (also called Java 8), Java 9 or Java 10 installed on your computer (PC, Unix/Linux). Only 64 bit versions of Java can be used.

The Java Development Kit (JDK) must be installed: while the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) can be used to run INTViewer, it cannot be used for development. Do not use OpenJDK. To install the Oracle JDK of Java J2SE, go to http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.

INTViewer 2018 requires NetBeans 8.1 or greater. NetBeans 8.1 can be downloaded from https://netbeans.org/downloads/8.1/index.html (95 MB download for Windows). If you use Java 9 or Java 10, use Apache NetBeans 9 downloaded from https://netbeans.apache.org/download/index.html.

If you use Apache NetBeans 9, copy the file INTViewer\intviewer\modules\ext\jsearch-2.0_05.jar file to netbeans\harness\antlib. This file is needed to link dialogs to help pages, and is not provided with the NetBeans IDE for licensing reasons.

NetBeans IDE

When you run NetBeans, you can identify which version of Java is being used by using the Help -> About menu.

License

A INTViewer license is needed to develop with INTViewer. In this documentation, a single user license in the form of a license.dat file is assumed to be available.

More information about system requirements and licensing options are available in the ReadMe.html and flexnet\license_instructions.htm documents that are located in the top directory of each INTViewer distribution. See also the INTViewer License Agreement in the INTViewer-License.html file for more information about the INTViewer API license grant.