A new version of Glean, a framework of Ant scripts for easily adding code feedback tools to a project build, has been released. V1.3 is available for download at http://jbrugge.com/glean/download.html.

This release includes support for new tools such as XRadar and Linguine Maps.

New tools:

• ckjm (Metrics)
• Classycle (Dependency analyzer)
• depfind (Dependency analyzer)
• JCSC (Static code analysis and metrics)
• Linguine Maps (for Ant and Hibernate mapping visualization)
• XRadar (aggregation and visualization of other feedback data)

All of these, except for XRadar, are available just like any other tool: download the tool, tell Glean where it is (toolhome.properties file), then tack it on to the "tool.pattern" property in your Glean configuration and it will show up in your feedback build. See the Tools page (http://jbrugge.com/glean/tools.html) for properties you can use to customize any of the tools, as well as links to download them.

XRadar (http://xradar.sourceforge.net) is a very interesting "collector tool" that I've been excited to try out. It is one that pulls together the results of the other feedback tools to help see the broader picture of your project's metrics, with some compelling visuals. If you like to look at your project's data from a number of different angles, I would suggest you look into XRadar to see if it's for you. To get started with it in Glean, make sure you have the tools that it reads from (see the XRadar description on the Tools page), then add "xradar" to the "collector.pattern" property setting and run Glean as normal.

New properties:
With XRadar there are now three "collector tools" available (XRadar, QALab and the Dashboard), each of which need to be run after the normal feedback tools. To make sure this happens, there is a new property added for specifying this type of tool.

• The "tool.pattern" property still represents the normal feedback tools that operate on the project source code.
• The new "collector.pattern" property represents tools that operate on the feedback data that comes from other tools. Like the feedback tools, you can choose as many or as few collector tools to run as you want, using the same Ant-style patterns.

You can also now specify a "resources.dir" and "test.resources.dir" to refer to a location of non-source files needed by any of the tools. If you have Spring files, for example, which are needed by your unit tests, and are not you in your main source tree, you can refer to the base directory holding them with this property. By default, these simply point to the src.dir and test.src.dir settings.

As always, feedback on ways to improve Glean, or tools you find especially useful are appreciated.