Maven project wizards are ok, but you still end up editing the POM a fair amount to get exactly what you need. It'd be useful just to have some skeleton projects with 90% of what you want ready to go.
Here is the first in a series of maven project skeletons. This project creates an executable JAR and a ZIP assembly to distribute it, along with its dependancies, config files and batch files etc.
The pom.xml includes various report generation plugins and references an assembly configuration, distribution.xml:
pom.xml
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>org.adrianwalker.maven.skeleton.jar</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-skeleton</artifactId>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<version>0.1.0</version>
<name>Maven JAR Skeleton</name>
<description>Skeleton project for creating executable JARs</description>
<url>http://www.adrianwalker.org</url>
<organization>
<name>adrianwalker.org</name>
<url>http://www.adrianwalker.org</url>
</organization>
<developers>
<developer>
<name>Adrian Walker</name>
<email>ady.walker@gmail.com</email>
<organization>adrianwalker.org</organization>
<organizationUrl>http://www.adrianwalker.org</organizationUrl>
</developer>
</developers>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
<mainClass>org.adrianwalker.maven.skeleton.jar.Main</mainClass>
</manifest>
<manifestEntries>
<Class-Path>../conf/</Class-Path>
</manifestEntries>
</archive>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<descriptors>
<descriptor>src/main/assembly/distribution.xml</descriptor>
</descriptors>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>make-assembly</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>assembly</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
<resources>
<resource>
<directory>src/main/resources</directory>
<excludes>
<exclude>**/*</exclude>
</excludes>
</resource>
</resources>
</build>
<reporting>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>jxr-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>findbugs-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</reporting>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
<version>1.5.6</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
<version>1.5.6</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
<version>1.2.14</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>3.8.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
distribution.xml
<assembly>
<id>distribution</id>
<formats>
<format>zip</format>
</formats>
<files>
<file>
<source>/src/main/resources/bin/run.bat</source>
<outputDirectory>/bin</outputDirectory>
<filtered>true</filtered>
</file>
</files>
<fileSets>
<fileSet>
<directory>/src/main/resources/conf</directory>
<outputDirectory>/conf</outputDirectory>
<includes>
<include>*.properties</include>
</includes>
</fileSet>
<fileSet>
<directory>/target</directory>
<outputDirectory>/lib</outputDirectory>
<includes>
<include>*.jar</include>
</includes>
</fileSet>
</fileSets>
<dependencySets>
<dependencySet>
<outputDirectory>/lib</outputDirectory>
</dependencySet>
</dependencySets>
</assembly>
Source Code
- Java Maven Project - MavenJARSkeleton.zip