Recent Posts by Geertjan Wielenga

In the Java programming language, there's the concept of "Java Keywords". These are reserved words and the complete list can be found here. For these keywords, I applied the principles discussed in yesterday's blog entry, using short texts from the Java Technology Glossary. As a result, when you press Ctrl-F1 over any of these words, as shown below (here the caret is on the keyword "private")... ...a help topic for that specific keyword pops up: The help topic is very simple...

I've worked out something really cool. Say you're new to the Java programming language. You see heaps of code in the editor, with identifiers such as "public" and "private" and so on. You don't know what these terms mean. So you use the plug-in module I blogged about yesterday (or you use Ramón's plug-in module, which is discussed in yesterday's blog too, and which does the same thing as mine). In other words, you select a word and then you click the "Word" button (in my...

In Send a Word to the Browser (Part 1), I blogged about a plug-in module by Ramón Ramos that lets you send the element under the caret to a search engine (note, though, that Ramón's plug-in module has been signficantly extended since I blogged about it—now you can not only select a search engine from a predefined list, but you can also add additional search engines, via a new category in the Options window). I was particularly interested in Ramón's plug-in module...

With all the out-of-the-box development technologies that NetBeans IDE currently provides, it really is the all-in-one Swiss army knife of the Java IDE world:

Yesterday I looked at how to use NetBeans IDE to create a UML model from an existing application. Today, I went through this tutorial: UML Modeling: Developing Applications. I did this because this time I wanted to start from the other side—without an application. My question going in was: "How much code will the IDE be able to generate for me?" I was quite amazed, really. I had assumed that I would have to build the whole UML model, that I would then have to choose a menu...

Last week, when I was teaching NetBeans to Java instructors in Munich and London, one of the most frequently asked questions was: "What about UML? Does NetBeans provide anything in this area?" My standard answer was: "Currently not, but later this year you shouldn't be surprised to find UML support integrated in NetBeans IDE." All along, I knew that UML support was already in the process of being added. In fact, since yesterday, anyone interested in UML has been able to make...

If you're a Swing developer (i.e., Java desktop applications) or a NetBeans plug-in module developer, you're in luck! In a few weeks' time, an update to the cool 5.0 module development support will be made available. For details, see API Support update testing program. If you're a user of the 5.0 rich-client application development functionality or plug-in module development functionality, you can register at the address provided in the above page (or just send an empty...

There was good news in my e-mail when I got to work this morning—Ramón Ramos sent me a NetBeans module that lets you, in Java source files, send the word under the cursur to The Java Developers Almanac 1.4. For example, here, where the cursor is over the word "package", I have selected the new menu item "Search Word in Java Alamanac Examplets": Next, the browser opens, the site is found, a search is done, and the search results are displayed automatically: Not bad, right? I...

The last session is over and, in total, John and I have now retrained 47 Java instructors from all over the world. In the first session, in Munich, we retrained 4 instructors, 14 in a virtual session from Munich, 9 in the live session near London yesterday, and 20 today in the on-line session. The 20 instructors that we dealt with today logged in from Germany, Sweden, Italy, Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Scotland, England, and South Africa. Not bad. It was actually...