Thanks for the report and detailed reproduction steps, Bernard! Scheduling for 0.2.4 for investigation.

Hi Bernard,

If you use output.dir.path=css-output-dir, SmartSprites will assume this path is relative to the current directory and generate the output there. SmartSprites does support absolute paths in output.dir.path, which is the simplest solution to your problem.

I'm not too familiar with NetBeans, but maybe it somehow exposes some properties relating to the project the build file is run in? If so, you could modify build.xml to put that property as a prefix in the outputdir attribute of the smartsprites task.

Thanks,

Staszek

Hi Stanislaw,

We can ignore NetBeans for the moment. I have made a testcase with a simple script as follows. This should make it easier to see the problem.

How to reproduce this without NetBeans:

• Make a copy of the binary distribution
• In the same directory as build.xml, create a script that executes build.xml
• Delete the directory css-output-dir
• Run the script
• Search for the folder css-output-dir
  It should not exist. ok.
• Edit the file smartsprites.properties. Change output.dir.path=css-output-dir, css.file.suffix=
• Run the script
• The directory css-output-dir is created in the same directory as the build script.
  This is not consistent with the documentation in build.xml

The Windows script that I execute from an explorer window:

@echo off
set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_06
set ANT_HOME=C:\Program Files\ant
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\ant\bin
ant

Hi Bernard,

Based on the documentation (I'm assuming you meant smartsprites.properties rather than build.xml?), where would you expect the css-output-dir to be created if you set output.dir.path=css-output-dir?

S.

Hi Stanislaw,

My apologies, I think the last testcase hides the issue rather than pointing it out. It appears that output.dir.path is relative to the current directory of program execution. However, in ant build environments as used with IDEs etc., it is expected that paths are relative to the location of the build script. I think that ant instructions e.g. fileset work like this and make it really easy to conform with this standard.

Here is a revised test case that shows the dilemma:

• Make a copy of the binary distribution
• In the directory above build.xml (outside), create a script that executes build.xml
  ant -buildfile smartsprites\build.xml
• Delete the directory css-output-dir
  smartsprites\test\css-output-dir
• Run the script
  New files are created as expected relative to the ant script directory:
  smartsprites\test\real-world-example\css\common-sprite.css
  smartsprites\test\real-world-example\img\sprite-vert.png
  smartsprites\test\real-world-example\img\sprite-horiz.png
• Search for the folder css-output-dir
  It should not exist. ok.
• Edit the file smartsprites.properties. Change output.dir.path=css-output-dir, css.file.suffix=
• Run the script
• The directory css-output-dir is created in the same directory as the command script not the build script.
  I would like to note that other files are clearly following the rule of being relative to the the directory of the build script - output.dir.path appears to not be following it.

Best regards

Bernard

Ok, now I see your point, Bernard. In the short term, you could hack this on build.xml level by prefixing the paths with build.xml file location (see the diffs here: http://fisheye3.atlassian.com/browse/carrot2/labs/smartsprites/build-autonomous.xml?r1=3637&r2=3642). For a long term solution, let me investigate what the Ant's convention is. If it's really that all relative paths are resolved against build.xml location, it would make sense for SmartSprites to follow that convention.

Hi Bernard,

I've made the smartsprites task to follow Ant's convention of resolving relative paths against the location of the build.xml file. Now, SmartSprites should work correctly in NetBeans for you. Please let me know if it does.

Download:

http://download.csssprites.org/smartsprites-0.2.4-dev.zip

Thanks for the report!

S.

Stanislav,

Many thanks! This works great now. SmartSprites can now be integrated easily into any ant build script where the project can be moved around without having to change any paths.

Closing for the 0.2.4 release.