Convert NetBeans 7.0 Ant-based app to Maven: Creating the dist

I recently converted a NetBeans 7.0 Ant-based application project to Maven. Here are the steps to create the dist dir.

• Add the following to your pom.xml

<profiles>
      <profile>
          <id>release</id>
          <activation>
              <property>
                  <name>performRelease</name>
                  <value>true</value>
              </property>
          </activation>
          <build>
              <plugins>
                  <plugin>
                      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                      <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
                      <version>2.3.1</version>
                      <configuration>
                          <archive>
                              <manifest>
                                  <mainClass>your.MainClass</mainClass>
                                  <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                                  <classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
                              </manifest>
                          </archive>
                      </configuration>
                  </plugin>
                  <plugin>
                      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                      <version>2.2</version>
                      <executions>
                          <execution>
                              <id>distro-assembly</id>
                              <phase>package</phase>
                              <goals>
                                  <goal>single</goal>
                              </goals>
                              <configuration>
                                  <descriptors>
                                      <descriptor>src/assemble/dist.xml</descriptor>
                                  </descriptors>
                              </configuration>
                          </execution>
                      </executions>
                  </plugin>
              </plugins>
          </build>
      </profile>
  </profiles>

• Create the file src/assemble/dist.xml with the following contents

<assembly
   xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.0.xsd">
   <id>dist</id>
   <formats>
       <format>zip</format>
   </formats>
   <includeBaseDirectory>false</includeBaseDirectory>
   <dependencySets>
       <dependencySet>
           <outputDirectory>lib</outputDirectory>
           <useProjectArtifact>false</useProjectArtifact>
       </dependencySet>
   </dependencySets>
   <fileSets>
       <fileSet>
           <directory>etc</directory>
           <outputDirectory>.</outputDirectory>
       </fileSet>
   </fileSets>
   <files>
       <file>
           <source>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.jar</source>
           <outputDirectory>.</outputDirectory>
           <destName>YourAppName.jar</destName>
       </file>
   </files>
</assembly>

The etc dir is located at the root of your project, and contains anything else you want to put in your dist dir.

To create the distribution, run the following command

mvn -P release package

The result will be a jar in the target dir with a name like MyAppName-1.0-dist.jar.