NetBeans 5.0 Released

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."

Comments

I really like netbeans

[Deinesh]

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

[Latent Heat]

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

[Billly Gates]

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.

Re:Solving the GUI layout manager problem

[AKAImBatman]

Better yet, you can try it for yourself:

https://mustang.dev.java.net/

The sourcecode is also available under a non-contamination agreement.

The Desktop features of Mustang are documented here.