Various Ant tasks used during the NetBeans build process.

Of especial interest to module developers are:

<makenbm>
<genlist>
Create NBM files for Auto Update, and create update tracking files to list the files contained in an NBM.
<makeparserdb>
Create a parser database for the NetBeans source editor so that your Java APIs can participate in code completion.
<jhindexer>
<checklinks>
<checkhelpsets>
Create search databases for JavaHelp help sets. Check those help sets, or any other sets of HTML files, for broken links.
<arch>
Create a high-level architectural summary of your module and how it interacts with the complete application, based on a premade XML-based questionnaire.

Of especial interest to those creating a complete NetBeans distribution:

<createmodulexml>
Pregenerate the files system/Modules/*.xml in a NetBeans distribution, so that they are not created in the user directory when NetBeans is first started.
<makeupdatedesc>
Create an XML file which can be put on a webserver that Auto Update can connect to in order to get a list of NBMs that it can install - create your own update center.