Recent Posts by Geertjan Wielenga

When you use the Wizard wizard to create files for a dynamic wizard—because you want the user to be able to skip steps or to branch off to a subset of the wizard steps—one of the files created for you subclasses WizardDescriptor.InstantiatingIterator. This is the class that you use to define what the next step in the wizard will be, depending on the choices made by the user in the current and/or previous step. But a subclass of WizardDescriptor.InstantiatingIterator is alsocr...

The internal NetBeans lab support department, here in Prague, officially called "Infrastructure and Lab Management Team", have a very funny homepage. At first you don't realize this, but then, once you start reading their 'Servicedesk Testimonials', your Monday morning suddenly becomes a whole lot better... By the way, this morning, on the way to work—out of the blue—something truly bizarre happened to me. I feared for my life, but of course, I contacted ILM right away and...

The wizard described below consists of one panel. Therefore, it could not possibly be simpler. However, creating this panel shows you some of the central concepts involved in the creation of wizards using the NetBeans APIs. The good thing is that most of the initial stages are wizard-driven; the bad part is that the rest of it is a little tricky. Most of the reason for this is that each panel is split over two classes, for good reasons (described here), but it doesn't make...

Over and over again users have been told that it is safer to test a newly developed plug-in module in a new instance of the IDE. However, if you're sure that your plug-in is solid (or if you're demonstrating plug-in development), it would be much easier if you were able to load your plug-in right into the IDE you're using at the time. For one thing, it's much faster, because a new instance doesn't have to be started up. For another, it's quite impressive to see the result of...

...for technical writers. Normally, when you're writing help topics, you try to decide what the tasks are that the user will want to do. And then you create a help topic for each task. And then you write the steps for each help topic. You try and make things as simple as possible, with as few steps as possible—but enough steps to make the task taskworthy. Everything should always be clear, concise, and correct. However, plug-in module development in NetBeans 5.0 is so "good",...

"My Favorite Things in NetBeans IDE 5.0 Beta" WebLogic, JBoss, enhanced Tomcat Server; JSF, Struts; drag-'n-drop tags with fervor; plug-in development fitted with wings —these are a few of my favorite things. Chorus: When the build breaks, when the plans slip, when I find a quirk, I simply remember my favorite things —and then I get back to work! "The Platform's improved!" (Please note I am citing.) SQL editor—syntax highlighting; shortcuts in menus; refactorings—these are a...

When I was about 12, I used to be a big fan of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books. They had titles like: "Prisoner of the Ant People" and "The Magic of the Unicorn". On page 1, the scene would be set—for example, you'd wake up smothered by vampires drinking your blood. What do you do? And then the book would helpfully give you some options: "Run around screaming? Turn to page 27." "Cut them off with the Sword of Destiny? Turn to page 8." "Curse them under your breath? Turn...

One area that's improved significantly in NetBeans IDE 5.0 is the SQL Editor. In fact, there never was an SQL Editor before. In NetBeans IDE 4.1 -- and the releases before that -- you had a very small space where you could type SQL commands for sending to the database (click to enlarge): In the screenshot above, you really need to look for the space for typing SQL commands, it's very small. In NetBeans IDE 5.0, you have a proper editor to use (click to enlarge): What makes it...

I've been making progress on the chess game (click to enlarge): The only remaining problem since the last instalment of this pseudo-series (click here for details) is the generation of the FEN string. A FEN string describes the position of all the pieces and non-pieces (i.e., empty squares) on the board. A FEN string looks like this: rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 The above line is the starting position -- the lower-case letters are for the 'black'...