How do you check if compileOnSave is on for a Project

[priyanahata]

is there a one-shot api that can tell you if a given project has compileOnSave "effectively" enabled? like taking into consideration maven properties, maven properties of the parent pom, nb-configuration.xml stuff or the "type of java project" (gradle, maven, ant)

[pratikrath126]

Hey! In NetBeans, there isn’t a single public “one-shot” API that returns the effective compileOnSave for every project type. The setting can come from project metadata (nb-configuration.xml / project.properties) and also be overridden by build tooling (Maven/Gradle/Ant).

For Maven projects, NetBeans generally relies on the maven-compiler-plugin and its own project configuration; the effective value is usually stored in nb-configuration.xml or nbactions.xml rather than being computed from the POM. For Ant-based projects, it’s typically a project property. For Gradle, it’s mostly controlled by the Gradle tooling, not NetBeans.

If you need a reliable check, the practical approach is:

1. Detect project type (ProjectType, lookup).
2. For Ant/Java SE, read the project properties (e.g., compile.on.save).
3. For Maven, check nb-configuration.xml (or use ProjectConfiguration) for NetBeans-specific settings.
4. For Gradle, treat it as unsupported by NetBeans CoS and assume false unless you find a plugin-specific flag.

So short answer: no single API; you’ll need to branch by project type and read the relevant project metadata. Hope that helps!

[priyanahata]

Best answer ever, better than an AI. Thank you Pratik "he / him".

I am thinking of puting "It" on my profile