The *.ent files in this directory provide common functionality to the project.xml file of various projects. There are different kinds, e.g. "-sources" from share-sources.ent * -sources: Defines sources used by a project. * -view: Defines project's sources that are displayed in the Projects tab. * -actions: Defines a set of actions of the project available from NetBeans. * -bindings: Defines the targets invoked by the corresponding actions. Note that -sources and -view files come in pairs: A project will have an entity reference for each, so that it uses and displays the sources. Similarly, -actions and -bindings are paired. These kinds are not paired: build-folder.ent: Defines the location of the folder where compiled classes, resources, etc. are placed. java-data-native.ent, java-data-no-native.ent: These define information about the location of classes and sources of native and non-native projects, where "native" is suggestive of "native code", that is, non-Java source code.