Adding external JAR to Maven project in NetBeans

From the NetBeans forum:

1. Open the Projects tab.
2. Right-click on Dependencies.
3. Select Add dependency.
4. Set groupId to: group.id (can be anything)
5. Set artifactId to: artifact.id (can be anything)
6. Set version to: 1.0 (can be anything)
7. Click Add to continue.

Dependency is added to pom.xml and appears under the Libraries node of Maven project. Continue:

1. Expand Dependencies.
2. Right-click on library (e.g., group.id).
3. Select Manually install artifact.
4. Set Artifact to install with the Java Archive (.jar) file path.
5. Click Install locally.

Library is installed locally with dependency attributes (coordinates) entered in steps 4 - 6.

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I found those instructions helpful when going through the NetBeans GUI. Basically when right clicking to add a dependency, the group id, version, and name must be populated with anything. Then that "dependency" will be listed in the dependency drop down. Right click on that newly created dependency and right click to install locally and navigate to the appropriate jar file.

This answer is for jars that are in the maven repo

Let's say I want to add log4j-1.2.17.jar to my project, all I have to do is find it in maven repository

Step 2 is to copy that and place it inside the dependencies tag of your pom.xml` file:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
        <artifactId>bootstrap</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.4</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.17</version>
    </dependency>
     ....
     ....
  <dependencies>

Step 3 Build and clean your project. The jar file will be in your dependencies folder afterwards

You can follow this tutorial: http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-3rd-party-jars-local.html

Example:

Install the jar to your local maven repository:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=cxf-2.7.3.jar -DgroupId=org.apache.cxf -DartifactId=cxf-bundle -Dversion=2.7.3 -Dpackaging=jar

Edit the pom.xml file in your project to include the newly added dependency:

<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
<artifactId>cxf-bundle</artifactId>
<version>2.7.3</version>
</dependency>

This should work regardless of the IDE you are using.

In Netbeans, the approach to adding dependencies that are not in repository is reversed. First come up with maven coordinates in the Add Dependency dialog. Then right click on the new dependency node and trigger "Manually install Artifact" action.