Tutorial : Creating, Importing, and Configuring Java Projects

Project:
In the IDE, you always work inside of a project. In addition to source files, an IDE project contains metadata about what belongs on the classpath, how to build and run the project, and so on. The IDE stores project information in a project folder which includes an Ant build script and properties file that control the build and run settings, and a project.xml file that maps Ant targets to IDE commands.

Note: Though the IDE puts source directories within the project folder by default, your source directories do not necessarily need to be located in the project folder.

Ant
Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool used to standardize and automate build and run environments for development. The IDE's project system is based directly on Ant. All of the project commands, like Clean and Build Project and Debug, call targets in the project's Ant script. You can therefore build and run your project outside the IDE exactly as it is built and run inside the IDE.

It is not necessary to know Ant to work with the IDE. You can set all the basic compilation and runtime options in the project's Project Properties dialog box and the IDE automatically updates your project's Ant script. If you are familiar with Ant, you can customize a standard project's Ant script or write your own Ant script for a project...

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Courtesy:- Netbeans.org