Handling multiple sets of projects in Netbeans

I like Netbeans. More than Eclipse. More than XCode.

At work, I deal with multiple departments, each with their own set of code that is represented in Netbeans as 10-20 Projects. Since I switch between departments very frequently (multiple times a day), I currently have all of the projects open.

This kind of sucks (Open-Project-Wide search being one of my oft-used utilities).

Does anybody have any advice for dealing with these sets (switching between them quickly)?

Thanks

NetBeans has a feature called project groups which should provide you what you're looking for.

If you right-click on the Projects pane and select Project Group, there is a menu option called New Project Group... which will allow you to create a new group.

There are multiple ways to define a project group:

• You can create a "Free Group" that is either initially empty or based off of your currently open projects. You can manually add or remove projects from this group later, as needed.
• You can create a group around a "Master Project", which will include that project and all the projects that it depends upon
• You can create a group around a folder on disk, which will include any projects that NetBeans finds within that folder.

Eclipse has a similar feature, called "Working Sets", which provides the same functionality. I'm not sure what Xcode has to manage this, and with Visual Studio you just open a new copy for each solution you want to work with.

For NetBeans 8 you do as following:

• Remove any project you do not want to have in the same project group
• File > Project Groups > New Group > Choose a describing name > create the group
• Right click on the blank area in project tab and click "Project Group" > Click "none" > Select Group
• Create another project group

When you're finished creating your groups, you can right click in the blank area in project tab and click "Project Group" > Click your created project group > Select Group.