NetBeans IDE 6.9 Released

NetBeans IDE 6.9 newest version has been released by Oracle. NetBeans is a powerful open source IDE supporting Java, C/C++, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP, Groovy/Grails, and other programming languages.

Download NetBeans 6.9 here.

Learn more about NetBeans by reading The Definitive Guide to NetBeans Platform.

NetBeans 6.9 Highlights

NetBeans IDE 6.9 introduces the JavaFX Composer, a visual layout tool for building JavaFX GUI applications, similar to the Swing GUI builder for Java SE applications. With the JavaFX Composer, developers can quickly build, visually edit, and debug Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and bind components to various data sources, including Web services.

The NetBeans 6.9 release also features OSGi interoperability for NetBeans Platform applications and support for developing OSGi bundles with Maven. With support for OSGi and Swing standards, the NetBeans Platform now supports the standard UI toolkit and the standard module system, providing a unique combination of standards for modular, rich-client development.

Additional noteworthy features in this release include support for JavaFX SDK 1.3, PHP Zend framework, Ruby on Rails 3.0, and GlassFish v3.0.1; as well as enhanced Java EE 6 support, improvements to the Java Editor, Java Debugger, issue tracking, and more.

More info available at NetBeans 6.9 release announcement.

NetBeans 6.9 New Features

OSGi Develop OSGi bundles with Maven Bundled Felix container Use OSGi bundles in a NetBeans RCP application NetBeans Platform OSGi interoperability (developing and consuming OSGi bundles in Platform-based applications) Felix 2.0.3 OSGi support, experimental Equinox support Convert NetBeans modules into OSGi bundles and run them in an unmodified OSGi container Branding Editor for both Ant and Maven Platform-based projects NetBeans Platform-based applications generate installers for most common operating systems Enhanced support for consuming web services and connecting to databases
JavaFX JavaFX Composer for form-like UI components with states and access to various data sources Added and improved editor hints and refactoring Enhanced Palettes for JavaFX Shapes, Colors, Effects, and Charts Improved code formatting
Java EE Support for Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) (JSR-299) Spring Framework 3.0 support Bundled GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 3.0.1 Easy regeneration of JPA entities after database change REST web services support for RCP applications
Java Java Debugger breakpoint grouping, debugger attach parameter history Support for annotation processors in the editor, configurable in the Project Properties New Applet and Web Start (JNLP) support Improved navigation in Stack Trace Analyzer and URLs, Go To Overridden/Implemented Method action Web Languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript Refactoring and find usages for CSS and HTML-like languages Code completion and hyperlinking for id and class selector attributes Refactoring inline CSS styles
Java Card Support for creating Java Card Connected 3 servlets, classic and extended applets Backward compatibility with Java Card 2.2.x and Java Card Classic Debugging, and multiple Java Card Platform/Device creation Alignment with Java Card Reference Implementation
PHP PHP Zend Framework support "Overrides/Implements" and "Is Overridden/Implemented" annotations New formatter with many formatting rules Ruby Ruby on Rails 3.0 support
C/C++ Unit test integration with C/C++ projects Enhanced remote development including remote file download and browsing Improved support of makefile targets and Fortran Improved hyperlink navigation between overridden methods and classes
General Many more editor hints for Java and Ruby Spell checker support in the Editor Help menu item for reporting bugs and slowness against NetBeans IDE Support for multiple Kenai-based team servers (e.g. kenai.com and netbeans.org).

Learn more about NetBeans by reading The Definitive Guide to NetBeans Platform.

Eclipse Java IDE 3.6 Helios Released

 
Eclipse IDE, the most popular open source Java IDE, has released version 3.6 codenamed Helios.

Download Eclipse 3.6 here.

New features in Eclipse IDE 3.6 include:

• A new Linux IDE package makes it easier for Linux developers to use an integrated tool chain for building C/C++ applications for the Linux operating system. This package includes the new Linux Tools project which includes Eclipse integrations of popular Linux utilities such as GNU Autotools, Valgrind, OProfile, RPM, SystemTap, GCov, GProf, and LTTng. A recent Eclipse Community Survey has shown increased use of Linux by developers. It is expected this package will help further accelerate Eclipse adoption in the Linux community.
• Eclipse Marketplace Client provides developers an 'app-store' experience to easily discover and install new Eclipse plug-ins. Eclipse Marketplace is a catalog of Eclipse based solutions. Over 100 of these will be available from the new Marketplace Client, making it significantly easier to find and install Eclipse solutions.
• Support for Git, a popular distributed version control (DVCS), is provided by the new Eclipse EGit and JGit projects. The new EGit 0.8 release includes a new Git repositories view and support for fast forward merging and tagging. JGit 0.8 - which EGit uses under the covers to talk to Git repositories - benefited from performance enhancements of up to 50% when working with large repositories.
• The Web Tools Platform project has introduced support for creating, running, and debugging applications written for the latest Java EE Specifications (Java EE 6) including, Servlet 3.0, JPA 2.0, JSF 2.0, and EJB 3.1.
• Improved support in the JavaScript Development Tools project (JSDT) for JavaScript developers, including a JavaScript debug framework that allows for integration of JavaScript debuggers, such as Rhino and Firebug. A new JavaScript IDE package has also been created to make it easier for JavaScript developers to find, install and use an Eclipse-based IDE.
• Eclipse Xtext 1.0, a popular framework for creating domain specific languages (DSL), introduces 80 new features, including improved performance and scalability by up to 30 times previous versions. A new in-memory indexing feature makes it possible to develop more sophisticated DSL's in Xtext.
• A new release of Acceleo 3.0 implements the OMG Model-to-text (MTL) specification and provides the features required for a code generator IDE. This release also provides unique tools around example-base design of code generators.

For more information check out Eclipse 3.6 release announcement.

To learn more about Eclipse platform programming, I highly recommend Eclipse Rich Client Platform (vogella series) by Lars Vogel. It's really good for learning Eclipse RCP/RAP development, most of the things that apply to RCP also applies to RAP. In fact, you can single-source an application to two target platforms (RCP for desktop, RAP for web) simultaneously. :-)