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Edit NAnt Scripts in a GUI
by Don Kiely

March 4, 2005

NAnt is an open-source build utility driven by an XML config file and a command-line tool. The config file that drives a NAnt build can be daunting to set up and maintain, particularly as it grows to contain multiple build targets. Profusion Software Studios’ Nantpad Professional 1.1 provides a GUI for building NAnt config files (see Figure 1).

I wasn’t sure that a commercial front end to a free, open-source tool was a promising concept, but Nantpad makes it far easier to maintain builds than using a text editor. The best benefit of using Nantpad is that it makes it easier to find and understand the many tasks built into NAnt and configure them correctly. Nantpad doesn’t improve on the sparse NAnt documentation, but puts it in easy reach while working on a build script.

The main Nantpad window contains three panes. The first pane has a treeview of the open config file, with nodes for each build target and its tasks, nested as deeply as necessary. The second pane is a task editor that displays help and a list of attributes for the item selected in the treeview. Here is where you can set attribute values, create new attributes, and remove them, aided by lists of available attributes. The third pane displays the current XML script in the build script file. A cursor moves to the corresponding node when you select it in the treeview, but unfortunately, selecting a node in the XML script doesn’t change the selected item in the treeview.

Two other tools, Expression Builder and Schema Manager, round out the interface. Expression Builder makes it easy to find and use the many functions NAnt provides to automate builds, such as one that lets you insert the current date and customize the build based on environmental settings. Schema Manager maintains the current list of NAnt tasks and features so you can keep current as the NAnt working group releases stable versions. You can also run individual build targets directly from Nantpad and view the output, saving the chore of moving to a command prompt to test your build script.

There are a few minor blemishes in the GUI. For instance, it doesn’t present a list of existing build targets for the depends attribute, and there’s no indication that a long script task is still running.

Profusion Software Studios asks what seems like a lot of money for what you could do with any simple text editor, but the same could be said about Visual Studio. Nantpad let me take advantage of many of NAnt’s features that I hadn’t used before, mostly because they were right there in plain view in the Nantpad interface. The improvement in my productivity makes the Nantpad price well worth it.

Nantpad Professional 1.1
Profusion Software Studios
Web: www.nantpad.com
Price: $242.78
Quick Facts: A GUI front end for NAnt build scripts, simplifying the complexity in NAnt.
Pros: Well-designed interface; tools for building complex scripts; adaptability to changes in versions of NAnt.
Cons: Rough edges on the interface; a bit expensive.

About the Author
Don Kiely is a senior technology consultant. When he isn’t writing software, he’s writing about it, speaking about it at conferences, and training developers in it. Reach him at .