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Java Programming

NetBeans 5.0 Released 92

Posted by CowboyNeal from the whole-new-brew dept.
pgsqlDAO writes "NetBeans 5.0 has been released. The new version of the cross platform, extensible, award winning Integrated Development Environment (IDE) comes out with some impressive features that make developing GUI and Web applications easier as well as new modules for creating extensions to NetBeans. The new Matisse GUI Builder makes it easier to layout professional looking windows and dialog boxes. On the web front you can register JBoss and Weblogic servers to deploy and test your applications intuitively from within the IDE. Better integration with popular web frameworks such as JavaServer Faces and Struts has been added including templates for the creation of JSF Managed Beans, Struts Actions, and Struts Form Beans. Other features included better tools for Web Services, Version Control, Debugging, Code Completion, Refactoring and more. Sun has also set up a free beta program to provide technical support to developers."
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NetBeans 5.0 Released More

NetBeans 5.0 Released

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  • It is excelent! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The 5.0 release is a huge improvement over the 4.x series. Apart from the new gui builder (which rocks!) there is a new profiler and they finally gave the IDE a decent options dialog (which resembles the one in firefox somewhat)

    There's also the much needed integration with struts and BEA. And the editor has many improvemente (many of them borrowed from Idea)

    NetBeans 5.0 > NetBeans 4.x > Eclipse

  • I've used NB for years (7 or so) and I'm very happy with the new version, at least what I've seen in beta. Of course, I don't touch many of the features as I have no need but for day to day Java development it's great. That's the nice thing about Java (and other languages to be sure)...it doesn't matter what you use to write the code, just as long as the code gets written (speaking as the lone NB on Windows user in an Eclipse on Linux shop).

  • I really like netbeans (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Deinesh ( 770292 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @09:59PM (#14632097)
    I am a beginer when it comes to J2EE technology. I have been in Eclipse land, even paid $ for MyEclipse, but I have always come back to Netbeans (4.1) - It just works right out of the box - no need to go hunting for plugins, figuring out how they work... In addition to that the IDE seems to follow (from a beginners perspective) the Sun Specs to the dot, so the code/xml produced should be extremely portable. Another thing I really liked about Netbeans is that it defaults to the Sun Standardized stuff (atleast when it comes to EJB's) - Instead of making you massage XDoclet to get the beans you want (MyEclipse), it has a very nice GUI for both the web.xml and ejb-jar.xml files. Forgot to mention the nice GUI for creating the beans themselves :D. My complements to the Netbeans team, I really like their product. Just my thoughts, take it with a lot of salt, I am just a beginer.

  • Solving the GUI layout manager problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Latent Heat ( 558884 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @10:01PM (#14632105)
    Looks like Java Swing may have solved the GUI layout manager problem. VB/Delphi using pixel placement layout allow you to place the controls on a form just so, but what about resize? I know, I heard, use anchors, but you end up doing a lot of tinkering with anchors and with panels within panels within panels to get things anchored right. Anchors in Delphi can be like a bad case of Swing BorderLayout.

    The Matisse layout manager allows direct placement, but it offers guidelines and snap-to-grid hints, and it auto-places anchors for resizing. On the other hand, there is this JAR file one has to distribute with one's apps to get this new layout capability.

    Could this finally be Java Swing as the VB killer? What I mean by this is that Swing is criticized for clumsy repaint, for ugly look-and-feel, for slow, etc. But is it good enough? VB apps are not known for speed or well-thought GUI design. For a lot of apps (whipping off a bunch of forms as a front-end to something) these are not considerations. What is a consideration is that someone versed in VB is not going to put up with Swing layout managers. If VB was the killer development app that kept people on Windows, this thing may help people break free.

    • Re:Solving the GUI layout manager problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @10:08PM (#14632138) Journal
      Java6 aka mustang will be focuses on improving swing. It will be multithreaded by default finally so the gui wont lock up making java look slow when the apps is busy. Also it finally has decent mdi support with tabs. Java7 will have swt like widgets that will integrate and look native to each platform its running on. A windows app will look like windows in java. And a linux app will appear like a normal gnome app on Linux.

      Thank god for C#. Its putting pressure on sun to improve Java and its finally moving forward again. Java5 is alot better then past releases.

    • The problem with visual designers is that:

      a. They either muck with your code by generating/parsing code or they use a proprietary format
      b. you can't touch the generated code
      c. you need to ensure that the version of the tool your using and the generated layout code are in synch (not a problem now, but what happens to your layouts with Matisse 2.0 rolls around?)
      d. They require everyone to use the same tool
      e. and probably the most important thing, they don't handle dynamic forms

      Matisse, while an accomplished t
    • That was a good explanation of all the clamor over Matisse. Java and Swing will never be a VB killer, but at least it gives Swing developers a nice layout manager.
    • The problem is the competition is already far ahead.
      Why would anybody want to play with this, when something like this [microsoft.com] is being cooked up?

      Windows Forms already does a bit of layout management, with its docking features, and that's good enough for most people.

      VB apps are not known for speed
      as opposed to Java apps? sorry that's not been my experience. I agree about the design part, though.

      I hope they've fixed its memory-hogging nature. Overall, I found it slower than Eclipse,more crashy, and gene

      • Re:Solving the GUI layout manager problem (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "The problem is the competition is already far ahead. Why would anybody want to play with this, when something like this is being cooked up? Windows Forms already does a bit of layout management, with its docking features, and that's good enough for most people. "

        That solution is not cross platform, which is one of the main benefits of using Java, and is completely restricted to Windows. If you want to be tied to the horribly buggy piece of crap that is Windows that's great but forgive the rest of us f
        • That solution is not cross platform, which is one of the main benefits of using Java, and is completely restricted to Windows. If you want to be tied to the horribly buggy piece of crap that is Windows that's great but forgive the rest of us for having a brain.

          Any developer that's worth anything has already moved away from Windows.

          And that's why there isn't any competition for windows on the client, because losers like you believe (maybe) in that crap.

          • Re:Solving the GUI layout manager problem (Score:4, Interesting)

            by smash ( 1351 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @12:04AM (#14632721) Homepage Journal
            And that's why there isn't any competition for windows on the client, because losers like you believe (maybe) in that crap.

            Such as Mac OS/X. Or even Linux, on the horizon (as always :D though it's made great leaps in the past 2 years).

            Client OS is becoming largely irrelevant these days anyway - the browser is where it's at, and Microsoft is losing their share there pretty quickly.

            Which is why they were originally so desperate to "win" the browser war. Unfortunately (for Microsoft), killing netscape just ended up spawning Mozilla/Firefox...

            smash.

            • Client OS is becoming largely irrelevant these days anyway - the browser is where it's at, and Microsoft is losing their share there pretty quickly.

              Which is why they were originally so desperate to "win" the browser war. Unfortunately (for Microsoft), killing netscape just ended up spawning Mozilla/Firefox...

              Sorry to burst your bubble, but hardcore DHTML/AJAX barely gets you to the functionality of Windows 3.1. Vista with Avalon/XAML will just drive the point home even more. Mozilla as a platform has alw
              • Name a single "home user" task you can do today that you could not do with Windows 3.1?

                smash.

                • I was being too giving when I said it approached the functionality of win 3.1. Obviously, HTML/Javascript hacks is a complete joke as a "toolkit" and you're extremely limited to what you can do in a sandboxed browser environment. You can't even open up a persistent socket without Flash. Do you really think that AJAX is anything besides a clunky, hack that is used because of the deployment opportunities? I guess you java server-side guys are so limited in your options, that you have to put the best face
                  • Just so you're aware, i'm not a "Java guy" - i fucking hate Java, and I do not code in it - so you're making wrong assumptions there.

                    I do not think Java is the be all and end all - my point however is that OS is becoming irrelevant - the tech to do *everything* you need in a browser is not here yet, but give it a couple of years and it will be - you can guarantee it.

                    That's my point - within the lifetime of Windows Vista, it will become irrelevant whether you're running MacOS, Windows or Linux or most da


                • Name a single "home user" task you can do today that you could not do with Windows 3.1?


                  Ripping a DV and burning it as SVCD.
                  Or simply: playing an MP3 stream.

                  (or basically everything needing more than 32 MB data)

                  angel'o'sphere
                  • Copy DVD to hard disk, crunch it at your leisure, burn to CDROM. Could do that with less than 32mb RAM if the application coder *had* to.

                    My mobile phone can play MP3s, and it has less functionality than Windows 3.1 - and I can play MP3s and do other things with Windows 98 running in 32mb of memory.

                    Try again :)

                    And next time, try to focus on the software side of things (Windowing toolkit, libraries, etc) rather than hardware requirements, as that's the point we're focusing on here ;)

                    smash.

                    • Well,

                      ok, if your point is: you could install Win 3.1 oon a modern +3 GHz Pentium 4 (or something) then ofc the machine is faste nought o crunsh a DVD or even to play mp3s.

                      However, if you mention Win 3.1 and you merly ask the question what a home user "could" do on Win 3.1 then I have to say: at the time where Win 3.1 was "en vougue" (that was arund 1993 to 1995) a home user could do NOTHING with it a home user in our days want to do.

                      If you like me to focus on the software then: there is no software for Win
              • Xaml... typical Microsoft not invented here syndrome... instead of going with xul, they forked xul and svg away altered parts of it and tied it to windows, so that the rest of the world has to clean up their mess again.

    • That would be good. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      About 90% of the time it takes me to develop an application is in essentially writing my own layout management tools that are transparently scalable and efficient. X/Motif is the worst for layout handling, Java is one of the better environments but still far grottier than it need be.

      I have always been in two minds about NetBeans - it's good, but if a tool doesn't actually help in the code writing, then I might as well use a colorized text editor. So far, I've not been as impressed by NetBeans' ability to ac

      • really? I find that surprising. The main reason I use NetBeans is that I enjoy the boost in productivity it's debugging/code-tracing ulities give me. They are the best I've ever used bar none. It's text editor is also pretty slick with acromyns like "sout" expanding to "System.out".
    • "VB killer"

      Hasn't VB already been killed by general disregard and disgust?
    • OpenStep Interface Builder was all that and more, last century. Of course, VB and Java have more developer market share than OpenStep (or MacOSX).

    • VB/Delphi using pixel placement layout allow you to place the controls on a form just so, but what about resize?

      It's not just resizing that makes absolute layout a Bad Thing(TM). What happens when you're running on a machine with different default fonts? What happens when you've translated your app into a different language, and all the fixed strings are longer? What happens when the screen's smaller than you anticipated? What happens when you're running on a different version of Windows (let alone an

  • While I like eclipse (Score:3)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @10:05PM (#14632120) Journal
    The gui tools are next to none with Netbeans... well for free ide's that is. Jbuilder is nice too... does anyone still use it?

    I need Java5 due to school so I have not been using Netbeans as the earlier versions had some issues with it. but I plan to switch and will fire it up later tonight after its done downloading.

    • How about other non-free IDE's like intellij IDEA ?
      I used it at work about a year back and it was awesome. Much better than eclipse in performance but kinda lacking in plugin diversity.
      I have since shifted to writing c++ in vi and eclipse with CDT :-).. and i think i am lovin it(vi) more than an IDE. There is nothing like vi(or mebbe emacs) for keyboard addicts, with the combination of ctags and minibufexplorer. Except debuggin, but thats okay since this is a different language.

  • Looks like they've got subpixel in there (Score:4, Informative)

    by aCapitalist ( 552761 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @10:34PM (#14632293)
    I saw some screenshots of it, and it looks like the editor finally got the subpixel rendering in there. It's still no cleartype, but at least the editor is now somewhat readable on a LCD.

  • Sweet! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lord_Slepnir ( 585350 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @11:03PM (#14632444) Journal
    Perfect timing for NetBeans 5 to come out. I just got done starting up NetBeans 4.0. I started it when it came out.
  • Does it do subversion out of the box?

    • Re:subversion? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Grayhawk ( 45153 )
      You're able to download modules for Subversion support, but it is not as well integrated as CVS at this point. They have a new project, http://subversion.netbeans.org/ [netbeans.org] , that should finally bring it up to the same level of support that CVS has.

      -rh
    • Speaking of which, how about integration with other version control repositories? Is an interface to Serena Dimensions (the VCS formerly known as PVCS) available?

      (I apologize for bringing up a commercial app in this forum, but people were bandying about names like intelliJ and I just forgot myself for a moment.)
      • Yes, NetBeans supports Subversion. In 5.0, these are the steps you use to set it up: 1) Firstly you need to install VCS generic support from AUC. 2) Install Subversion profile support. 3) register new svn versioned directory with the use of "Versioning Manager" 4) Switch to "Favorites" view and add directory you setup as your "Working Directory". 5) Select this directory and invoke "SVN Local | Check out". 6) Open project.
  • I've been a long time and happy user of Borland JBuilder, but have recently decided to switch to a free environment. I picked Eclipse because I need to use JBoss at work and and JBoss seems to recommend it. So, after a great deal of readaption to a different way of thinking have finally become comfortable with Eclipse.

    I've found Eclipse does some things nicer than JBuilder, but it also does some things worse. And it lacks some important features out of the box - like a gui builder.

    Anybody got enough experi
    • Anybody got enough experience with NetBeans to say whether it is better or worse that Eclipse?

      They are good at different things... With Eclipse you get something very barebones, and you have to search around for a lot of plugins. Netbeans have good integrated support for exiting XML files, JSP files, Javascript, etc. Netbeans has nice wizards for creating different kinds of Java projects (say, EJB, Swing, Struts...). Historically, Eclipse has been a lot lighter and faster since it used SWT rather than Swing
      • for exiting XML

        Oops... I meant editing of course.
      • Yes, NetBeans is better than Eclipse. It has all the features you'd expect from an IDE and dosn't require you to surf the net searching for plugings for basic functionality like GUI building. A few other nice features:

        It has built in support for most popular servers like JBoss, WebLogic, and TomCat, as well as any database that supports JDBC. You can work with these servers and databases right inside the IDE.

        Strong refactoring and code navigation.

        Strong code generation support. There are many template

    • IntelliJ is better.
    • Anybody got enough experience with NetBeans to say whether it is better or worse that Eclipse?

      It depends. I prefer NetBeans, because my appliactions usually have complex GUI. GUI editor of NB 3.6 was the best at the time I chose IDE for a project. Matisse, the GUI editor of the new version is the coolest I've seen among IDEs. I also like the web application support and the integration with Ant.

      Although I liked some features of Eclipse I never got really used to its logic. There are some plugins which
    • And it lacks some important features out of the box - like a gui builder.

      Considering eclipse was just a download and my copy of jbuilder enterprise actually did come in a "box"...

      But if you want the GUI builder in eclipse, just go to Help Menu -> Software Updates ->Find and Install , and add the GUI building stuff.
      The Swing/AWT/SWT builder isn't perfect, but its under heavy development and its been very usuable for a while now.

      The last version of jbuilder we paid for was Jbuilder2005, we got Jbui
    • Having not used eclipse I can't answer that question, but I can say that NetBeans is a lot better than JBuilder. Layouts take 1/4 the time, and NetBeans simplifies the code by not requiring a massive amount of layout managers just to get everything to position where you want it. NetBeans has access to more properties of each object than JBuilder does. With NetBeans you can actually use the drag and drop functioanlity of the GUI a lot quicker than JBuilder. In general it is a lot faster than JBuilder 6.0

  • Award Winning (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hayriye ( 609198 )
    When I see "...award winning..." in a text, I stop reading the rest.
  • I work freelance and every single one of my clients uses a different IDE and source tree setup. The only IDE that can consistantly deal with this situation is NetBeans 3.6.

    The developers dropped the ball with 4.x and above. Everything has to be where NetBeans expects it without a lot of messing around. I mean 4.x won't even let me create a JSP file unless NetBeans thinks that it has a "web app" to create it in. WTF is up with that? Especially since I can create it in Konqueror and refresh the folder in N

    • You should really look up working with and configuring freeform projects..

      ( e.g. http://www.netbeans.org/kb/41/freeform-config.html [netbeans.org] )

      Free form projects let you use arbitrary ant-scripts with netbeans.. Netbeans5.0 is really much better than 3.6..

      • From your link:-

        If you are comfortable working with Ant, you can edit your Ant script and the IDE project configuration file to achieve an even tighter integration between NetBeans IDE and your build process.

        No I can't. It's not my software to change and unless its in the requirements, no-one's going to pay me to do that.

        Essentially, I don't want any kind of project file, ever. The code bases I work on already have their own build systems - some ant, some maven, some proprietary. I don't want to re
    • Well for a large part of my last developement project I used nb 3.6 and used Java 5. I avoided most of the new language features b/c nb wouldn't recognize the syntax but as long as you go in and change the compiler you can compile your Java 5 code in NB 3.6. I upgraded to 4.1 and like it a lot better, I had absolutely no problems importing the source libraries/projects but it was a j2se app.
  • Ah... OK, I gave it a shot... Added the source trees to the project, removed one source branch and tried to add it again. Nope, can't do. Restart app, try again. Nope. Won't let me add the branch back. I'm done with this piece of crap. Back to Ecplise, it at least works.
  • I've been using 3.6 and I can't get it to word wrap long lines in xml files. It is kind of an annoyance. But I figured it would be fixed in the next version, no big deal.
    But a colleague is using 4.1 and he couldn't get that to word wrap long lines either? It looks like you can word wrap the output area, but not the code editing workspace.

    I'm only using the Windows version, does the linux version have word wrap? Is it buried in an option set somewhere that I haven't caught? If it is not possible and the
  • I used to use the application about 5 years ago, since it was the best free IDE around for Java. The problem was that it was really heavy on the CPU and memory. Previously to that I used VisualCafe, and NetBeans was certainly an improvement.

    Move on a bit and I discover Eclipse (maybe through a friend or collegue) and really got to like it. A few things that I liked were the performance and the ability to open multiple projects at the same time. I am hooked on Eclipse, but I am always willing to take a look

    • I used to use the application about 5 years ago, since it was the best free IDE around for Java. The problem was that it was really heavy on the CPU and memory.

      I hear ya - Netbeans definitely likes the RAM. I have a winxp p4 2.8ghz box, and 512mb of ram was just not cutting it. Now I have 1.5 gig and it runs very smooth. I tend to be less critical of ram usage for dev tools, and ram is relatively cheap so I've pretty much stuck w/ Netbeans over Eclipse.

      It apppears netbeans 5.0 footprint hasn't changed. I

      • If you're in a corporate or school environment, check whether you have virus-protection that does on-access file scanning (most do). This will KILL your Netbeans performance (and I suspect any other java ide) as it's constantly loading/accessing .jar files. Once I added put .jar files in Norton's exception list things went much, much faster.

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