Pro NetBeans

The NetBeans team has released NetBeans IDE 6.9 Milestone 1 Available.

Highlights include:

NetBeans Platform OSGi interoperability
– New Maven project archetypes available
– Easy import of OSGi bundles for use in Ant projects

Java EE
– Support for Contexts and Dependency Injection
– Simplified REST Web Services consumption in NetBeans RCP and Java client applications

Java Web Applications
– Initial support for Spring 3 framework
– Automatic import for Java classes and tag libraries in JSP code completion

PHP
– Zend framework support
– Enhanced code formatting options

Ruby
– Gems indexing

C/C++
– Support for Makefiles: Editor, navigator, run targets
– Virtual functions: Multiple hyperlinks, annotations

Java Editor
– Support for annotation processors
– Over 60 new hints added

Web Languages
– CSS refactoring and enhanced code completion

http://bits.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.9/m1/

The NetBeans team has just made available a wide set of patches for NetBeans IDE 6.8. The patches address numerous issues in the C/C++, JavaFX, and JSF modules. Fixes are also included for Java web apps, IDE platform, and RCP support.

View the entire list of patch fixes at the NetBeans Wiki : http://wiki.netbeans.org/NetBeans6.8PatchesInfo

NetBeans 6.8 Milestone 1 has been released.

You can read the new and noteworthy report here : http://wiki.netbeans.org/NewAndNoteworthyNB68

It includes features like a new embedded browser, Java EE6 basic support, and a variety of other improvements.

Download NetBeans 6.8 Milestone 1 here : http://bits.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.8/m1/

NetBeans IDE 6.7 Release Candidate 3 Now Available?.

Read about it here : http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/NewsItemView?newsItemID=1396

Download it here : http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.7/rc/

Recently I was looking through the admin tools for my website and blog, http://www.pronetbeans.com. One area I occassionally glance at, but usually ignore, is the search terms section. When users enter the site from a Google or Yahoo or Dogpile or **insert your engine here** search, the search terms typically get logged.

I was curious what the buzz around NetBeans this year since I’m currently at JavaOne so I thought I’d lookup and mention some of the most searched for (or interesting) terms that people have searched for and hit my site with between January 01, 2009 and today, June 4, 2009.

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Several pages have started showing up on the NetBeans Wiki that name NetBeans 6.8 as the next version number. Some of the pages to keep an eye on as the content is added include:

Editor Plans for NB 6.8 : http://wiki.netbeans.org/EditorPlan68

Some of the more interesting (and frustrating issues) that might be addressed include :
– Fix error badges and error underlining
– Support for Class-Path attribute in manifest (finally!)
– Optimize Imports
– Make the IDE usable during scanning (Scanning and Data Usage) – this issue has been hotly debated in a variety of bug reports from some frustrated users.
– Format code and fix imports on multiple files (code beautifier)

Database Plans for 6.8 : http://wiki.netbeans.org/DatabasePlan68

Some of the possible improvements for the database features include:
– Improved SQL code completion
– Embedded SQL code completion (probably a big maybe)

General performance plans : http://wiki.netbeans.org/NB68PerfPlan

An interesting note, just mentioned by John Brock and Sharat Chander during their Kenai BOF…. sometime in the next few weeks, the Kenai APIs will be published for public use. Very cool. The APIs are RESTful, I believe they said, and will allow developers to pull data from any Kenai feature (bug tracker, wiki, members) and push data from anywhere to Kenai projects.

They also touched on the earlier announcement that Kenai will talk to the Hudson continuous integration server. Kenai will provide an actual Hudson server (you won’t need your own server). The feature will not be active by default. You will need to email the Kenai admins to request access to the private beta of Hudson support in Kenai. Sign me up!!!

They also announced a really cool Kenai feature to be released in the near future… voice over IP. Each project will have its own conference room where you can utilize an VOIP conference. It will be interesting to see how this works.

Tuesday night during JavaOne’s late night BOF sessions, I was surfing through the highly addictive chat client, DarkChat. You never know who is going to pop in… James Gosling suddently dropped in to chat for a few minutes. It’s a small world (DarkChat at least).

Sitting in a technical session here at JavaOne, titled ‘Continuous Integration in the Cloud’ with Kohsuke Kawaguchi and Jesse Glick.

The session focused on a using Hudson overview, using HUdson in a distributed master/salve manner, and some of the newer use cases (such as with clouds and Kenai).

One of the cool items discussed was the Hudson Amazon EC2 plugin which allows you to automatically provision slaves on EC2 on demand. I haven’t heard it mentioned (yet), but I would imagine in the near future you will be able to do the same in Sun Cloud.

I didn’t hear much about Hudson and NetBeans or Hudson and Kenai. Maybe more later at their BOF.

In NetBeans 6.8, it looks like there are tentative plans to implement an embedded web browser or web preview directly inside NetBeans.

The concept is to minimize the amount of time the user spends switching between the IDE and external web browser. Hopefully, it will work more like a WYSIWYG preview feature (think Dreamweaver style) and not a thick or heavy web browser. I know I’ve hoped for years to have a web preview option directly in NB. Hopefully this addresses some of that need.

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