NetBeans, BlueJ, and the Mac

NetBeans continues to grow as an excellent Java development environment. New releases, guidelines, and vendor integration allow you to do more with less.

With the release of NetBeans 5.5, Beta 2, Sun has gotten closer to eliminating some of the Java SE and EE version confusion that I wrote about in a previous blog entry. Version 5.5 adds support for Java EE 5 and Sun Java System Application Server PE 9, supports JAX-WS 2.0 and EJB 3.0, and makes it easier to build Ajax-enabled web applications.

NetBeans BlueJ Edition

Sun has been working to enable BlueJ, the Java learning environment from the University of Kent, to integrate with NetBeans. NetBeans 5.0, BlueJ Edition, is aimed at beginning programmers and Java developers, with special interfaces that make it easier to learn object-oriented programming. By integrating BlueJ with NetBeans, beginning Java developers will find it easier to go from beginner to pro, using the same sets of tools they learned with. NetBeans 5.0 BlueJ Edition is available for Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X.

Max OS X Java GUI Development

NetBeans 5.0 and the user interface builder, Matisse, allow you to build cross-platform Java UI applications (i.e. Swing) quickly and easily. But what about on the Mac? The NetBeans team has worked to ensure that the latest releases (both 5.0 and 5.5) run properly on the Mac. Still, building a Java application that looks and feels right on a Mac can be a bit challenging. However, Apple has released a set of user interface design guidelines to help ensure that your Java GUI applications behave properly on the latest Macs. All of the guidelines are sound ones in general, whether or not you plan to build your application to run a Mac.

Posted by Eric Bruno at 07:59 AM  Permalink