This page is based on a very old version of Netbeans and may not be relevant anymore. Users of this IDE are advised to take these rules loosely.

1. Start NetBeans 7.0 or later (these instructions do not work with earlier versions).
2. Install the Team Server Plugin (may be done already with some NetBeans installations):
   - Use Tools / Plugins and choose the "Available Plugins" tab in the Plugins manager.
   - In the left pane, check the "Team Server" plugin and click "Install". If it is not listed, then it may already be installed.
   - Use Window / Services to open the "Services" tab
   - Expand the "Team Server" node and check that the "savannah.gnu.org" Team Server is listed.
3. Download Electric Sources from savannah.gnu.org .
   - Use Team / Team Server / savannah.gnu.org and click Open Project
   - Search for "electric", select "Electric: VLSI Design System", and click "Open From Team Server"
   - Expand the "Electric: VLSI Design System" node in the "Team" tab and the "Sources" subnode
   - Click "Source Code Repository (get)"
   - Either enter "Folder To Get" or click the "Browse..." button and choose "trunk" .
   - Choose "Local Folder" and select the location for Electric Sources. The default is "~/NetBeansProjects/electric~svn"
   - Click "Get From Team Server"
   - When done, the "Checkout Completed" dialog will say that projects were checked-out. Click "Open Project...", choose "electric", and click "Open".
4. Build Electric
   - Click Run / Set Project Configuration / release-profile.
   - In the "Projects" tab, right-click "electric" and choose "Build". The Electric project is large. If the build hangs, then it may be necessary to add "-J-Xmx2g" to the netbeans_default_options in file <NETBEANS_INSTALLATION>/etc/netbeans.conf .
5. Run Electric.
   - Use either Run / Run Main Project (electric) or Debug / Debug Main Project (electric) from the main menu.
6. Create a shortcut to start Electric from Desktop:
   - Create a shortcut to "~/NetBeansProjects/electric~svn/electric/dist/electric.jar" in Unix or to "Local Folder\Documents\NetBeansProjects\electric~svn\trunk\electric\target\ electric-V.VV-n-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar" in Windows
   - Edit shortcut's "OpenWith" to OpenJDK or other Java distribution. Make this shortcut executable.
   - Launch Electric with this shortcut.
7. Create electric distribution for your organization (optional).
   - Copy the folder ~/NetBeansProjects/electric~svn/electric/dist (with subdirectories) to a shared location in your file system.