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Guests: Ian Formanek and Larry Baron MDR-EdO: Welcome to today's Java Live chat on what's new and cool in the open-source NetBeans IDE. Our guests today are Ian Formanek, who is chief of technology for the NetBeans project at Sun Microsystems, and Sun senior product manager, Larry Baron. They're ready to answer your questions about NetBeans. So let's start with the topical question: What's new and cool in NetBeans? Ian Formanek: Hi Everyone, thanks for joining us today. There is plenty of news happening with NetBeans as we speak. First, we are busy finishing up the NetBeans 3.6 release, the RC2 should come out in couple days, and we are on track for the final release for April 13. The second exciting thing is today's release of a Refactoring prototype for the 4.0 release, planned for end of summer of 2004. This prototype is the first preview of 4.0 made available to all users. netbeanie: Is there a place where I can find a NetBeans "roadmap"? When is NetBeans 4.0 going to be released? Larry Baron: All of our information is on netbeans.org. We are working on a 4.0 page that will highlight some of the major features in 4.0 such as refactoring and a new Ant-based build system. Right now we are planning the launch of 4.0 and it's going to be either late August or September. korb: How will RAVE impact NetBeans? Larry Baron: RAVE and NetBeans are targeted to different developer segments. NetBeans is for the Java Source Code developer. RAVE (properly called Sun Java Studio Creator) is for the 'corporate' developer that does much more assembly than actual coding. Have you seen a demo of Creator? korb: No, I haven't seen a demo of Creator. Is there one available? Larry Baron: I'll see if I can get the information by the end of today's chat. If not, send me email and I'll hook you up. Ian Formanek: By the way, the exact location of the NetBeans roadmap is here. hutchike: Can you tell me about compatibility between Eclipse and NetBeans? Ian Formanek: Well, this question is really several questions. The basic compatibility between Eclipse and NetBeans as Java IDEs is guaranteed, as both of them do support Java technology standards, so all of the artifacts produced in one can be used in the other one. The other compatibility is on the level of IDE plug-ins. On the plug-in front, the situation is much more complex, since both Eclipse and NetBeans have fairly complex architectures and their plug-in APIs reflect that complexity, so direct compatibility is almost impossible to achieve. There is, however, JSR-198. That JSR was started last year. It plans to address the general interoperability of IDE plug-ins. It creates a compatibility layer against which plug-in developers can write. This approach guarantees the ability to use the plug-in in multiple IDEs (all that support JSR-198). Faceless: Will Sun Java Studio Creator be the main tool to use for JavaServer Faces (JSF), or will there be anything in NetBeans to help with JavaServer Faces development? Larry Baron: NetBeans does not support JavaServer Faces, so Sun Java Studio Creator is the vehicle for that. gangrel-br: Is there any visual development tool planned for NetBeans for developing Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) applications? Like the swing editor, but for MIDlets? Larry Baron: There is ongoing work on a mobility project that we are tentatively targeting for the 4.0 release. Additionally for 4.0, we plan to provide a "smart install" capability -- for example, if you are a mobility developer, you can specify that at install time and you'll just get the mobility feature set. Ian Formanek: At this point I cannot promise this for any concrete release, but some sort of visual tool for J2ME could be provided for free by Sun's mobility team. chrisk: What do you think is the coolest thing coming down the pike in 3.6 or 4.0? Larry Baron: 3.6 has some very cool things. The native look and feel gives it a very fresh look. We've worked on the workflow to streamline that. There's a nice feature in the editor called "code folding" that allows you to hide code you aren't working on at the present time. GlennHolmer: There were big changes in the user interface for 3.6; are more changes planned for 4.0? Ian Formanek: Definitely. 3.6 focused on 2 major things: the use of Windows L&F on Windows 2000 and XP (and updating the NetBeans design to look cool under those L&Fs), and introducing a brand-new window management system to streamline the way the IDE fits into the natural workflow of development. 4.0 will base on that but improving the visual design, and introducing some improvements to the windowing system, such as Autohide functionality (essentially minimizing certain views to the borders around the workplace), using subtabs for opened documents (for example, grouping together source and visual editor under a single document tab), and more. Check the 4.0 features page for more. Faceless: I have just started using NetBeans 3.6RC1 and think it is a really big improvement. It is all the small changes that have been made that make it much more usable. I have had great fun moving windows around and can navigate around my development files much easier and faster. Keep up the good work. Larry Baron: The response from users has been universally positive. As we move forward to 4.0 and beyond, we'll be consolidating and maturing the features and functionality in our releases -- planned to be about 3 per year. There will be an RC2 coming out soon. So far, we've had 25,000 people download the Beta, so it's getting wide-spread usage. Steamthunk: What are the plans for the GUI/form editor portion of NetBeans? Ian Formanek: We have been somewhat slow in this area in the last two releases, where the majority of work was focused on reflecting the underlying IDE changes (such as the windowing system) and other minor improvements. Given that, and given the newly rising importance of rich clients, the form editor team is going to put more effort into making sure the UI development is state-of-the-art in NetBeans. This is going to be part of the 4.1/4.2 planning.
Steamthunk: Thanks. I'd like to put in my vote for more support of the Larry Baron: Thanks for the suggestion. There are aliases on NetBeans.org where we are happy to have suggestions for this. Have you joined any of the aliases? 2Pedorretas: Will NetBeans include more beans in the component palette, or has it been left to each programmer or programming group? Ian Formanek: The component palette can work with any visual or non-visual components that follow the JavaBean patterns. The NetBeans team has no plans at this point to develop additional JavaBean components, and it is generally left to other projects and companies to provide those. Larry Baron: One thing I want to mention about the NetBeans 3.6 rollout. The English NetBeans final version will post to netbeans.org on April 13. The Simplified Chinese and Japanese versions will follow. For the first time in NetBeans' history, we'll be offering a convenience CD that can be purchased on NetBeans.org. This is available for $9.95US + S&H and will ship with multilanguage support on May 26. Larry Baron: For users new to NetBeans, there's a wealth of community activity on NetBeans.org so I encourage you to prowl around there. And watch the site for some exciting new look and feel and reorganization to make things easier to find. wolfy: I used NetBeans in the past, I liked it and started telling people to use it. They complained about how not-so-easy it was compared to vb. Are you planning to make NetBeans easier to use to produce code and GUIs faster? Larry Baron: We've done a number of things in NetBeans 3.6 to make it easier to get started. This theme of the 'out of the box' experience will be carried forward to NB 4.0. We are striving to make the first 10 minutes with the tool as easy as possible to get started and productive. hutchike: Can you tell me about the code refactoring capabilities of NetBeans? Ian Formanek: We are going to introduce refactoring features for the first time in the 4.0 release, planned for late summer - as I mentioned earlier, the preview of that was just released today. The functionality in 4.0 will include Renames (class/method/field/package), Moves, Change method parameters, Encapsulate field refactorings with some advanced navigation features. There will be more of refactorings coming in 4.1/4.2. For 4.0 the focus was on the most widely used refactorings as well as making sure the infrastructure (which is fairly complex) underneath it is rock solid and rich enough to allow us to do a lot of cool stuff in the next couple of years. Larry Baron: I'll give you guys a peek at the future. At the JavaOne Conference this year, we are going to have a companion day on Tuesday, June 29 that we are calling NetBeansOne. There's going to be a NetBeans-focused day with interesting guests, partners and sessions. Anyone who is going to JavaOne should check it out. taige: Is there a projected French version? Larry Baron: Yes, there's a French version planned. This is done by one of our community members (who is also on the NetBeans board). vbb: Hello everyone. I just joined the conversation now. It seems that this week I will have a lot of work: download and try the build containing the new project management, download the other special stuff concerning refactoring. vbb: But I can tell you that the French version will not be on the CD, it's not yet mature. But you have a lot of documentation translated in French, even a mailing list in French, if you want. Larry Baron: Yes it's true that our community-donated language version will not be on the CD but is downloadable from NetBeans.org. On the CD we'll have English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. We've heard that someone is working on a Portuguese version. vbb: I can confirm the Portuguese version, and I can say that Russian and also Dutch versions are well advanced. Larry Baron: And in the future, you will be seeing a Czech version too. chrisk: I am wondering whether any participants have tried the early release of 3.6? Larry Baron: As I mentioned earlier, we've had 25,000 downloads of NetBeans 3.6 beta. The response from focus group has been VERY positive. Faceless: Is there anything you can tell us about the project system based on Apache Ant? I am looking at Ant as a way to manage compiling and web application deployment. Is there a major difference between how Ant is used with the 4.x and 3.x versions of NetBeans? Ian Formanek: Actually yes, there is a very fundamental change between 3.6 and 4.0, and the new Ant-based project system is the main reason for bumping the major version number for the first time in the history of NetBeans. Essentially, the idea in 4.0 is that Ant is a first-class citizen in the IDE - you will interact with the project system in the IDE, and under the hood, Ant scripts are used to do the work. The nice thing about this is that expert developers can tweak and customize the Ant script, and also use it outside of the IDE for headless builds. The developers that do not want to care about Ant and just want to build their stuff do not have to worry about it. wolfy: I think NetBeans and Java 2 platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) should be included in the Java Desktop System; the JRE is not enough. Larry Baron: I'm glad you asked this. The next version of the Java Desktop System (first availability April 30) will include NetBeans 3.6 and J2SE 1.4.2. There is also a special Sun Java Studio promotion which includes this tool (a $695 value) for free! Moving forward, you will see NetBeans included in the base Java Desktop System install in all versions. gangrel-br: In NetBeans 3.5, the CVS integration in the IDE is very good. Are there any improvements coming? Larry Baron: You should check out NetBeans 3.6. We've done some additional work with the CVS integration. netbeanie: Is there a good book or other document that you can recommend to NetBeans users? Larry Baron: There's a new book planned. We are looking for someone in the community to step forward and we'll hook them up with a publisher. For other NetBeans material, NetBeans.org is THE place to go. MDR-EdO: Well we've quickly come to the end of our session. I'd like to thank all of today's participants -- I thought we had a very nice range of questions. And, of course, I'd like to thank our guests Ian and Larry. Larry Baron: It's been fun chatting with you guys. We've had great response so we'll look to do one of these quarterly to let you know what's up and what's coming. For all of you that want to give us feedback, email us at nbusers@netbeans.org.
MDR-EdO: Last moderator (me) signing off. The forum is now unmoderated.
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