Can NetBeans 7.4 have JDK 1.6 as a default platform?

Question

I am using Netbeans to work mostly on Java Core Applications that have been created and need to run on Java 6. I have Java 6, 7 and 8 installed on my machine and have them all available in NetBeans to configure my projects.

However, since NetBeans 7.4 only runs on Java 7+, Java 7 is selected as my default platform in NetBeans. The usual way to change that would be to set

netbeans_jdkhome=<my java 6 installation>

in netbeans.conf.

However, this is the JDK NetBeans uses to run so i am at an impasse.

The problem is: Our projects depend on a great many other projects sadly not using something like maven or similar, so when i do a "clean & build" in netbeans, even when i set the project's platform to "Java 1.6", all dependencies are compiled using "Java 1.7".

Is there any OTHER way to set the default platform for netbeans? I would rather not switch back to NetBeans 7.3.1, since 7.4 fixes some bugs i was REALLY annoyed and slowed down by.

I already asked the same question in NetBeans forums without any reaction, so please forgive me if you already have read it there.

Answer 1

Currently, apart from netbeans.conf you can only specify the Java Platform per project (Project Context Menu -> Properties -> Build -> Compile) and not per "Project Group" or NetBeans-wide.

Also see: https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=234324