Recent Posts by Geertjan Wielenga

Let's say you're beginning to create a plugin that will integrate tools for some web framework into NetBeans IDE. Download this plugin to help you get started: http://plugins.netbeans.org/PluginPortal/faces/PluginDetailPage.jsp?pluginid=7597 Install it in NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta: Create a new module called, for example, FooFrameworkSupport. Right-click it and choose "Web Framework Provider Support". In the first panel, choose a library containing the JARs required by your web...

There was a big repackaging over the past weeks, for the VisualVM APIs. However, two examples are available, right now, that you can look at when migrating some plugin that you may have created previously. If you check out the sources from https://visualvm.dev.java.net/, you will find a 'samples' folder, with two samples, as you can see here: Those are two standalone plugins for VisualVM. Just open them in the IDE, set the latest VisualVM as your platform (you probably need...

I'm pretty impressed by the Spring support in the NetBeans IDE 6.1 development builds. Among other things, you can jump from references to classes and methods to their definitions in Java classes: But the best thing is... that all the properties in a referenced class are available in the code completion box, within the context of the bean that references the class: That's definitely my favorite Spring feature in the IDE. So, if you go to the "com.sun.swingset3.SwingSet3"...

Let's take the wizard panel from a few days ago and disable the "Finish" button until both the new fields are filled in: Change the visual panel's signature so that it implements DocumentListener. Then, in the constructor, add a DocumentListener to both of your new fields: extField.getDocument().addDocumentListener(this);impField.getDocument().addDocumentListener(this); Next, implement the DocumentListener's methods like this: @Overridepublic void changedUpdate(DocumentEvent...

I am a big fan of John O'Conner's writing. He has a blog on java.net and he also has a number of articles in other places. Below follow 3 reasons why I believe he is "the best technical writer in the world":Very detailed technical knowledge, coupled with great didactic skills, and a wonderful clarity with words. Two articles I'd like to mention as evidence here are these: Creating Extensible Applications With the Java Platform Synchronizing Properties with Beans Binding (JSR...

Last week, we held a NetBeans Platform Certified Training session, over Thursday and Friday, here in Prague: It was a pretty good event. It was the first time I took my new hint template on the road for real. It worked and some of the students seem to have already been using it, judging from some of the comments to the mailing list we created to give them direct access to us. We covered all the typical NetBeans Platform subjects, from Lookup to the NetBeans window system to...

At the end of my recent Javalobby article, Overview of NetBeans Java API Samples in Plugin Portal, two users asked for a more advanced wizard for Java classes, one that would let the user specify superclasses and interfaces right in the wizard. Fine. Let's create exactly that. If you work through everything in this blog entry, you will end up with a new template in the New File dialog: When you click Next, you'll get everything as usual, except also the possibility to fill in...

I attended an interesting meeting yesterday. NetBeans hosted some of the leading thinkers from NASA, MIT, and Mensa. We ended up brainstorming the "NetBeans of the Future". Those Mensa guys, especially, were pretty smart. And MIT's involvement was really helpful too because they were able to add a level of practicality to the discussions. They really know the NetBeans APIs well, they're so smart with their photographic memory that they just need to scroll through the Javadoc...

The OpenOffice.org developers of the NetBeans plugin for OpenOffice.org are in Prague today. I attended an interesting presentation where they demoed their plugin this morning. One of several things I learned about was their very cool Extensions site: http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/ Unfortunately, however, you cannot see (currently) from inside OpenOffice.org which extensions are available. On the other hand, this is a feature that NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta does have...