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Using RefactorIT Standalone or With Your IDE
Before I get into the details of installing and working with
RefactorIT, I would like to go over some of the possibilities
using RefactorIT (or a similar tool) can bring to the
enterprise. Primarily, refactoring allows companies to set new
standards, but it does require integrating this product into the
overall development process of your organization. Some of the
possibilities include:
- Creating and enforcing new coding standards such as having a
required comment density (to ensure future programmers know what
is going on quickly).
- Allowing for simple code audits (programmers could first do
this from within their IDEs to avoid embarrassment).
- API comparisons allow for architects and senior programmers
to see what their underlings are getting accomplished.
- Eliminate extraneous imports and other easy-to-miss
sloppiness that always happen as code is modified.
Theoretically: no more spaghetti code.
- Find out where code is used before deciding to make
a change, and allowing for removal of unused code.
- The list goes on. Why aren't you refactoring yet?
Installation and Requirements
RefactorIT can be used on Sun Solaris 7 & 8, RedHat 6.0 & 7.0,
Mandrake 8.1, Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and Mac OS X 10.
Installing RefactorIT is a straightforward walkthrough for the
supported environments and can be done using tarred or zipped
files or using JARs. The current 1.3.2 version can also be
installed using the NetBeans Update Center Wizard. Make sure you
have at least 128 MB RAM and JRE 1.3 or 1.4.
Using RefactorIT Standalone
RefactorIT standalone looks almost like an extremely paired-down
IDE. Figure 1 shows a screen capture of the RefactorIT
standalone. On the left is a project window which shows the
project and its structure, on the left is a large window where
code is displayed and the bottom of the screen is a console
where metrics, auditing and other program information is
displayed. The refactoring work, such as moving classes and
running audits, is done through the Tools menu. The other menus
give the predictable operations: open, create new and save
through the File menu, toggle the console and change global
settings through the View menu, edit project information through
the Project menu and get help through the Help menu. The main
step of using the standalone is to setup your projects
correctly, you will need to make sure that you add all of the
directories where Java (.java) source files for your project
reside, as well as all of the JAR files.
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