Description

quoted from a Netbeans dev :

friend APIs are APIs which are not stable and therefore not public. If you want to use them anyway, you have to pretend to be a friend and use them. Since they can change from release to release, you have to do provide a build for every release

This do not make it easy for plugin developpers. It is the case with following APIs

https://github.com/apache/netbeans/tree/master/ide/gototest
https://github.com/apache/netbeans/tree/master/ide/gsf.codecoverage
https://github.com/apache/netbeans/tree/master/ide/gsf.testrunner

DEV mail thread: https://lists.apache.org/thread/rdwh4vh07zxgbxyjfzfhxd8yjk7o23wv

Use case/motivation

As those 3 APIs are very important part of a Language support module they need to be made available to allow plugin developers to work with them more smoothly.

It is now several years since those APIs are not public if i am not wrong.

I worked with them recently and didn't noticed any instability or harm to the IDE.

Related issues

No response

Are you willing to submit a pull request?

Yes