What is CapeCanaveral?

CapeCanaveral is a replacement / integration for the application launcher in the NetBeans Platform.

What is the application launcher in the NetBeans Platform?

It is a small piece of software that prepares the classpath, sets up a few system properties and runs the Platform-based application. It is also able to apply some software updates in case this operation couldn't do during the last run of the application, and to eventually restart it. The application launcher is made by a shell script for Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X; it is a small native executable made in C for Windows.

Why would I need to replace / integrate it with other software?

For a number of reasons also depending on your target operating system. For instance, with a customized launcher:

1. It is possible to force the application to update itself at startup (in contrast with the usual mechanism of update centers which require user interaction).
2. On Mac OS X you can use the specific "application bundle" facility for running the application
3. You can set the user directory in a different place than the one selected by the standard launcher
4. You can dynamically compute some VM options (for instance the amount of maximum memory), rather than relying on a fixed configuration.
5. You can make sure about the things that are in the boot classpath.