Recent Posts by Geertjan Wielenga

In 6.0, NetBeans will come with its own Preferences API so that, for example, preferences will be stored in the NetBeans user directory. In 5.5, however, module developers must use the standard JDK Preferences API. (There are other approaches, such as the System Option class, which is deprecated in everything but name. But all other approaches are harder than using the Preferences API.) Today I learnt how to do that and it is really easy (especially for those who recall the...

In February, I interviewed Andrea Martano, a Java instructor from Italy, about how (and why) he uses NetBeans to teach Java. (For details, see Interview with an Italian Java Instructor.) Part of the discussion in that interview was about whether it is a good idea to use an IDE at all when teaching Java. Doesn't an IDE, through all its hints and tips and error highlighting and so on, prevent a user from actually learning Java? Isn't it kind of cheating to learn like that?...

In the API Versioning panel in the Project Properties dialog box for NetBeans module projects, there is a "Public Packages" checkbox. You can specify that a package is public, which is not the case by default. What effect does this have? Follow the steps below to find out.Create a module suite project. Set the project name as "MyNewSuite". Click Finish. Right-click the suite's Modules node. Choose Add New. Type "ModuleA" as the project name. Click Next and Finish. Repeat the...

Here are the experiences of Aljoscha "Josh" Rittner who ported his Swing application to the NetBeans Platform. In fact, he turned it into a NetBeans module and loaded it into the NetBeans IDE, which is itself a Swing application... that's another way of porting your application: instead of porting it to a standalone application, just turn it into a module (or a set of related modules), install it in NetBeans IDE, and then... you'll only need to start up one application where...

...even for beginners. Before beginning to work on documentation for NetBeans module development, I'd always assumed that creating modules (i.e., plugins) for NetBeans was hard, requiring some kind of advanced knowledge of Java and NetBeans. However, since then, I've discovered that's not the case at all. In fact, creating a plugin for NetBeans is many times simpler than, for example, creating a web application. And I don't mean the part where you use a wizard to create the...

During the NetBeans User Group meeting in Munich recently, one of the participants asked me "how to change the author value in a Java file". By default, the computer's user name is used. But, imagine you changed your name (or, more likely, you've inherited someone else's computer), and you still get your old name in a Java file whenever you create it: /\*\* \* \* @author Geertjan Wielenga \*/public class NewClass { /\*\* Creates a new instance of NewClass \*/ public...

I learnt something interesting about key bindings in NetBeans today. They're defined in files called keybindings.xml. Such files are available on an all-language level, as well as on language-specific levels. If you're in the Projects window for a module project (any module project, other than a library wrapper module project, in a module suite project, if you're using a module suite project), expand "Important Files", then expand "XML Layer", and then expand "this layer in...

Jarda contributed a new sample to contrib, called manifesteditor. If you're looking to find out about MultiView editors, I highly recommend it. (I discovered I needed a trunk build, together with JDK 1.6, but haven't yet worked out why, and maybe it isn't true.) It's a pretty good sample that will form the basis of a chapter in the upcoming module development book. It has a normal text editor for Manifest files, with a "Visual mode" that consists of a property sheet. It...

In Pilot Chapter for Upcoming NetBeans Module Development Book, I announced that we're working on a book that would be useful to NetBeans module developers. In that blog entry I also posted a link to a "pilot chapter", which was about Class WebFrameworkProvider. It generated a lot of really helpful comments and... ...I'm hoping this one will too: Providing a Component Palette. The aim of this chapter is to provide everything you would ever need to know about component...