This is not a problem but an issue of clarity especially for anyone new to NetBeans and Maven. There are two Run commands available for a project, the green run symbol and on the context menu for a project. It appears that neither invokes Maven, something I would think is expected if the project has a pom.xml file.
What this means is that you must use the context menu choice Run Maven. When selected it is not clear which of the choices will invoke Maven to run your project. I do not think anyone will assume you need "Other goals" to execute the project. This is confusing in my course because I require my students to have a <defaultGoal>. It does not appear that any of the other choices on the context menu will execute the project. This means I must instruct my students to select "Other goals", enter nothing, check the box "Remember as", and enter a name. This name will now appear on the Run Maven menu and selecting it will now invoke Maven and recognize the <defaultGoal>. This is not intuitive. My suggestion is that there should be a Maven Run command that assumes a <defaultGoal> and declares an error if there is not one. It should be a top-level choice and not hidden inside a context menu. Thank you for reading this gripe. Ken
