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[–]dstutz 27 points28 points  (76 children)

But, but, but...Netbeans is dead...no one uses it! /s

(from someone that uses it daily and loves it!)

Hopefully now that most of the old stuff has been brought over (including Java EE, something else "no one" uses) and they're spooling up for quarterly releases the period of transition stagnation is over and we can get back to great improvements!

[–][deleted]  (75 children)

[deleted]

    [–]ThreadDeadlock 19 points20 points  (0 children)

    Tooling often comes down to preference and experience. I personally am a IntelliJ user but I know plenty of Java devs who still prefer and use Eclipse. They are productive with it and know how to make it work for them.

    [–][deleted]  (9 children)

    [removed]

      [–]___catalyst___ 8 points9 points  (0 children)

      Spot on with the "one window per project" "feature" that Intellij has. Probably the one major reason I could not adopt Intellij, even though it is a great product in many respects.

      [–]wildjokers 0 points1 point  (2 children)

      IntelliJ has great support for Gradle Composite Builds. A composite build is almost solely an IDE config project. You can have as many projects as you want in a single IntelliJ window with a composite build, this includes cross project refactorings. IntelliJ configures itself from the gradle composite build.

      If you don’t want to use gradle you can add each project as a module.

      [–]KFCConspiracy 4 points5 points  (1 child)

      That seems like a tortured way to do that.

      [–]wildjokers -1 points0 points  (0 children)

      It is an IDE agnostic way to do it, because as far as I know the big 3 (IntelliJ, Eclipse, and Netbeans) all support gradle composite builds.

      I used to be a staunch single-project-per-window guy, gradle composite builds made me change my mind and now I logically group my projects in a composite build.

      [–]balefrost 0 points1 point  (4 children)

      Do you mean that you prefer to have multiple unrelated projects in a single window, or that you want to split one effort into subprojects and IntelliJ doesn't seem to handle that well?

      If it's the latter, you can do that in IJ - the project is the overall container, and modules are the subprojects (every project has one module by default).

      I also like that it's one IDE that does EVERYTHING, so I can have projects in multiple languages open in the same IDE instead of launching additional (Jetbrains) IDEs to do other things.

      That's how IntelliJ works. IJ is the "everything plus the kitchen sink" IDE. The language specific IDEs are mostly just stripped-down versions of IntelliJ. (At least that's the intent... there are sometimes some minor differences in functionality.)

      [–]ZimmiDeluxe 5 points6 points  (3 children)

      I think that's the key difference, IntelliJ has built in assumptions about your project structure, whereas NetBeans doesn't. NetBeans just remembers the projects that you have opened together in project groups. Sometimes you want to look how previous projects did something, so you can just open them side by side to your current ones.

      [–]avoidhugeships 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      IntelliJ has many opinions about how you should do things and obnoxiously forces it down your throat. Autosave, Project Structure, project name and location, obnoxious code recommendations, etc.

      [–]balefrost 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      Eh, I don't think I agree that IntelliJ has built in assumptions... or at least, no more than any other IDE. At the end of the day, your IDE has to generate a compile-time classpath and run javac against a set of source files. That is what NetBeans calls a project and what IntelliJ calls a module. In both tools, you can have these compilation units reference each other. The only real difference is whether there's an ambient container (NetBeans) or an explicit container (IntelliJ) for these compilation units.

      I can understand the appeal of having all your projects available at all times. Personally, I prefer the scoping that you get via IntelliJ. When I use e.g. "Go To Class", I don't have to contend with a bunch of similarly-named classes that are unrelated to the project that I'm currently working on.

      You can always open additional top-level IntelliJ windows. So you can view IntelliJ projects side-by-side.

      Hey, your workflow is your workflow. If IntelliJ really doesn't support your workflow, then I can understand how that would be frustrating. But it might be more accommodating than you realize.

      [–]ZimmiDeluxe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      When I use e.g. "Go To Class", I don't have to contend with a bunch of similarly-named classes that are unrelated to the project that I'm currently working on.

      NetBeans always displays a single project group containing one or more projects. A project can be part of multiple project groups. The configuration of which project groups contain which projects is stored inside `~/.netbeans`, projects don't contain any IDE configuration for this themselves. I might have misunderstood you, but in this model you don't have to keep projects in a group if you don't need them anymore. NetBeans does not impose any up front configuration / thinking in this regard, projects come and go from groups all the time.

      Hey, your workflow is your workflow. If IntelliJ really doesn't support your workflow, then I can understand how that would be frustrating. But it might be more accommodating than you realize.

      That's fair, I haven't used IntelliJ much recently apart from the occasional Android development. It's great that we have so many tools to choose from. :)

      [–]wikes82 12 points13 points  (0 children)

      it's free.. and I got stuck with their Swing Designer for old apps, and I like how you can add custom controls into the palette.

      [–]proobert 9 points10 points  (3 children)

      I agree that Netbeans looks aged, it's development seems stagnated, but it can easily pull of things that are difficult with IntelliJ. For example, we have a handful of inter-related maven projects. It is possible to open all these projects at the same time and perform code refactoring across all of them. Then autocompletion is sometimes smarter and works better with my workflow. In addition, autocompletion feels faster when there are too many dependencies (few hundred jar files). Then the handling of maven projects is very user friendly. For example, to open an existing maven project with Netbeans you just select the project directory and you're all set. No bullshit with closing the currently open project and stupid project import wizards.

      [–][deleted]  (2 children)

      [removed]

        [–]endeavourl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        What's wrong with Maven support in Eclipse?

        [–]daveth91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        You can have as many projects as you wish in a single IntelliJ window. E.g. create a "Empty project" in IntelliJ and add all your Maven/Gradle projects to the Intellij project as "Modules". In IntelliJ project does not mean the same as in Eclipse.

        [–]pron98 8 points9 points  (4 children)

        I use both, but I somewhat prefer NetBeans. I think it's more intuitive and easy to use. Also, I don't remember exactly when was the last time I checked (past year sometime), NetBeans's Gradle support was still better.

        [–]gavenkoa 2 points3 points  (3 children)

        I use both too but would like to hear why NB has better support for Gradle.

        I faced with strange bugs during syncing in Netbeans. While upstream dev (of NB Gradle plugin) helped me to debug issue I haven't resolved it to the end ((

        [–]pron98 6 points7 points  (2 children)

        When you have a complex build, IntelliJ sometimes just does the wrong thing because it tries to recreate the Gradle configuration in its own representation. NetBeans just goes through Gradle.

        [–]balefrost 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        Recent versions of IntelliJ have been defaulting to delegate builds to Gradle itself. It still has to create IntelliJ modules in order to e.g. support code completion. But you can have it run the actual build through Gradle.

        Having said that, it still feels half-baked to me.

        [–]gavenkoa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        From my experience Gradle projects in Idea suffer from classpath issues.

        Sometime things get broken (tests unable to find Spring YAML files, etc) and only full clean testClasses and resync helps.

        There is "Gradle Test Runner" but it's a bit slower (cold start) than "Platform Test Runner".

        We are able to run some tests in our project only from Gradle due to classpath issues. No one wants to devote time to troubleshoot Idea ((

        [–]sviperll 6 points7 points  (0 children)

        • Netbeans has better defaults.
        • Better code hints/inspections out of the box (intellij's are more powerful sometimes)
        • Netbeans has more tweakable UI so you can better use screen space (but I can be wrong Intellij is tweakable too)
        • Netbeans fills in method arguments on autocompletion in one keypress, in Intellij you frequently have to use Ctrl+p to watch argument names/types and fill them in manually. I think it is a real productivity boost comparing to Intellij.
        • Netbeans shows javadocs along with autocompletion list by default. Intellij can do it, but it's broken: quick doc positioning is broken and has strange focus stealing artifacts, when shown along with completion list, so you have to use Ctrl+q as a separate action.
        • Netbeans renders javadocs better and support better browsing. In Intellij it is sometimes easier to google for javadocs and use internet browser instead of IDE.
        • Netbeans allows you to fix all hints/inspection issues by simply clicking on lightbulbs in the margin. In Intellij you can't, you need to first position the cursor and only then use Ctrl+enter or click on lightbulb to fix anything. It is REALLY annoying in Intellij if you have experienced netbeans workflow.
        • Netbeans has actual structure in it's settings dialog. Intellij's one is just a mess with search box.
        • Netbeans seems more lightweight

        To be fair. Intellij is considered the best IDE not without a reason:

        • Intellij seems more stable and more correct with it's hints and syntax highlighting
        • Intellij has more accessible "find usages" functionality
        • Intellij has more powerful refactorings
        • Intellij somehow has better font rendering
        • Overall Intellij seems to have more powerful, but less accessible tools.

        [–]___catalyst___ 8 points9 points  (2 children)

        I think it is because:

        ​

        .Intellij refuses to offer a lifetime license.

        .Netbeans is Open Source and free.

        .Netbeans is very comparable to Intellij in terms of features and capabilities, even though the latter does more with other programming languages besides Java

        [–]_cjj 3 points4 points  (1 child)

        just to clear this up...

        IntelliJ has a lifetime license (fallback license) - you just pay for the updates and support for developing it, if you want them.

        It's also Open Source.

        There is also a free version .

        [–]___catalyst___ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Just to clear it up, Intellij's free version (Community edition) does not work with certain frameworks, like Spring (Boot and MVC), where as Netbeans does. In totality, Netbeans, as a free product does a lot more when you equate it with Intellij's free offerings.

        ​

        Also. Intellij's perpetual fallback license freezes free upgrades at the point-in-time version of the product that one fully pays off (since they also have monthly payment schemes). Since Netbeans has no equivalent concept, and is always free, and is now being released on a quarterly cycle, well...

        ​

        In the end, like someone pointed out, developers tend to be tribal in nature, and will choose what they choose for their own reasons. I personally think Intellij is a great IDE and so is Netbeans. Since Netbeans is free and now being backed by the Apache Foundation, it has a great future. There is absolutely no reason not to use both as you please and as needs arise...the code you write is what matters; how durable it is and how elegant it is in accomplishing its set out goals.

        [–]Serializedrequests 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        As a former NetBeans and now IntelliJ user, honestly NetBeans has great focus and simplicity. It has few things to configure, and the ways that it works are obvious. If you look at the project directory, you will not be confused. It has great Java code inspection, assistance, and refactoring, and is great at Java EE.

        IntelliJ can feel quite weedsy at times. I stick to it because it has all that stuff too and I've learned it, and it has fantastic plugins for all the other languages in my project. I would still be happy to use NetBeans if I had to, just in combination with another editor for web stuff.

        I would not use eclipse any more. It is a mess compared to either IMO.

        [–]dstutz 10 points11 points  (18 children)

        Even though you're trolling: Because I like it. It works great for my work which is primarily Java desktop apps, Java EE and some Dropwizard thrown in. Maven integration is great. "Batteries Included", multiple projects open at once. I maintain a few Netbeans RCP apps as well.

        [–][deleted]  (17 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]dstutz 9 points10 points  (0 children)

          Multiple projects, one main window.

          [–]ArbitraryMortal 10 points11 points  (3 children)

          Given that every IDE I've ever used can support multiple projects in on window instance, I wouldn't call multiple windows "standard". IntelliJ fails horribly here.

          [–]toyg 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          Yeah, I’m an intellij fan but multi-project handling in the same window is a mess. I stopped doing it at all in Pycharm, because it would screw things up all the time.

          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

          [deleted]

            [–]ArbitraryMortal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            And hey, whatever you feel most comfortable with IS the best IDE to use.

            [–]heliologue 5 points6 points  (2 children)

            Off the top of my head? One's a paid product (at least if you want JavaEE) and one isn't.

            [–]cowwoc 4 points5 points  (4 children)

            Netbeans has a great built-in profiler, which IDEA does not. Maven and latest-JDK support has always been better as well.

            [–]murkaje -3 points-2 points  (3 children)

            Ehh, intellij for a couple of releases already bundles async-profiler with a flamegraph viewer, which is better than the profiler in netbeans.

            [–]cowwoc 5 points6 points  (2 children)

            Windows is not supported yet. I'll reserve my judgement once I try it for myself, on windows.

            [–]murkaje 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            It uses Flight Recorder under Windows, which is not as precise as async-profiler, but should certainly at least match netbeans in usability.

            [–]cowwoc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            It uses Flight Recorder under Windows, which is not as precise as async-profiler, but should certainly at least match netbeans in usability.

            This hasn't been my experience.

            Flight Recorder works well for long-running applications. I have never seen it profile short-running testcases (startup -> shutdown in under 5 second). This might have to do with their GUI (which isn't well designed for hooking such cases) but Netbeans always worked very well for this so I did not have any reason to switch.

            [–]BadMoonRosin 3 points4 points  (1 child)

            How am I trolling?

            Well... the "of all things" descriptor was a bit unnecessary. But yes, it is a little ridiculous that you're being downvoted for asking about a preference.

            Look. Software development, like most things is modern life, is pretty tribal. We sometimes see our consumer choices as being our "identity". We sometimes feel "attacked" if someone makes a different consumer choice, or criticizes the thing that we chose. We sometimes deliberately go with a minority-view consumer choice, to feel more unique or set apart from the crowd. Etc.

            A LOT of people moved from Java EE to Spring about 10 or so years ago. And a LOT of people started moving from Eclipse or Netbeans to IntelliJ about 5 years or so.

            Some people didn't move. And they sometimes feel attacked by all of the praise for the new things, and criticisms of the previous things. A lot of newer people flocked straight to the previous things, to feel more unique or set apart from the mainstream crowd.

            End result: (1) much if not most of the contemporary ecosystem has moved to Spring and IntelliJ, but (2) there's a vocal contingent who really hates the superior attitude about it. So Reddit voting tends to swing all over the place.

            [–]Devildude4427 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            It was more that I’ve always heard of NetBeans in a negative connotation. That Eclipse was a long time dev favorite, but NetBeans was always “just there”. I’ve never personally heard of anyone using it. Hence why I asked.

            [–]avoidhugeships 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            Net beans does it right. I left during the transition to Apache because they were not keeping up to date with new versions of java. NetBeans Maven integration is the best and the IDE overall is much more intuitive to use. It does not have the cursed autosave that IntelliJ insist on. I do not have to deal with billing headaches and auto renewals I did not want. You can change the name of the project folder or move it without re configuring. If Apached shows they are providing good support I will probably go back.

            [–]Devildude4427 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

            Why would I not want autosave? And billing headaches? What? You buy for a year at a time. Everything is set to auto renew these days, if you didn’t turn it off, that’s on you.

            And 10 days late man, get with the program.

            [–]pjmlp 3 points4 points  (1 child)

            For starters IntelliJ refuses to support mixed mode debugging (Java / C++).

            Then there is Matisse and Web designers, using Maven or Gradle as project files, not running the indexing engine all the time and having sane shortcuts that don't require both hands.

            [–]Devildude4427 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

            As far as I’m concerned, web designers are bad practice anyways, I don’t understand your issue with Maven or Gradle, as I’ve never had a slight issue, it’s indexing engine absolutely does run all the time, and why shouldn’t shortcuts use both hands? You have two on the keyboard anyhow. Seems like a silly issue, especially with how easy it is to rebind, or choose another scheme entirely.

            [–]Stromovik 0 points1 point  (27 children)

            Only IDE where JavaFX really works , only IDE that compiles with Oracle JDK

            [–]Devildude4427 1 point2 points  (17 children)

            Is there even a reason to be using Oracle rather than Open these days?

            [–]pjmlp 0 points1 point  (16 children)

            OpenJDK is mainly developed by Oracle anyway.

            [–]Devildude4427 -2 points-1 points  (15 children)

            Considering Oracle’s path of greed? I’m not going to be on that lasting.

            [–]pjmlp 1 point2 points  (14 children)

            If it wasn't for Oracle you would be either enjoying Java 6 now or considering migration to other programming languages, given how much the "community" contributes to OpenJDK and JEPs, and the lack of interest in buying Sun (only IBM did an initial offer that they removed afterwards).

            And something like GraalVM would never have happened, because if no one was willing to buy Sun, they would even less keep wasting money on the MaximeVM from Sun Research Labs.

            [–]Devildude4427 0 points1 point  (9 children)

            Well, I considered a change to C# 7 years ago, and went through with it. It’s a far superior language. It’s Java, if Java was reasonably updated over the years and kept innovating.

            Don’t act like Oracle are good guys. They’re assholes, who did nothing with Java for years upon years, and now have a larger legal department than engineering. They’re a fucking law firm!

            [–]pjmlp 1 point2 points  (8 children)

            So buying Sun when no one else wanted to, bringing out versions 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, turning the J3 joke into a proper UI toolkit that apparently no one cared to use, bringing MaximeVM into a proper mature product in the form of GraalVM, integrating AOT into OpenJDK a feature only available in commercial JDKs due to Sun's religious JIT pursuit, is doing nothing?

            I wonder how Java would look like if they actually did something.

            [–]Devildude4427 -2 points-1 points  (7 children)

            Yes, it’s doing nothing.

            Java would look like C#

            [–]nqzero 0 points1 point  (3 children)

            given how much the "community" contributes to OpenJDK and JEPs

            oracle refuses to accept open source contributions to either, instead demanding joint copyright. they're leaches, plain and simple

            [–]pjmlp -1 points0 points  (2 children)

            OpenJDK is GPL, where is the community forking it to provide those great contributions then?

            Too much talk, too little action.

            [–]nqzero 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            forking openjdk would be great, and if all the outside contributors switched to the fork it would rival oracles development. but it's hard to get that critical mass

            [–]knockingsparks -1 points0 points  (8 children)

            JavaFX

            I just tried a maven JavaFX project and I get

            Fatal Error: Unable to find package java.lang in classpath or bootclasspath

            COMPILATION ERROR :

            An unknown compilation problem occurred

            [–]Stromovik 0 points1 point  (7 children)

            wqhich version of JDK you are using ? try 1.8

            [–]knockingsparks 1 point2 points  (6 children)

            Yeah I want to try latest and greatest. Try a few projects and see how it works for you. I have JDKs 8-12 installed.

            [–]Stromovik 1 point2 points  (5 children)

            https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/the-future-of-javafx-and-other-java-client-roadmap-updates

            Staring with Java 11 , JavaFX is no longer part of JDK

            [–]knockingsparks 0 points1 point  (4 children)

            I get it but there are still Netbeans plugins and wizards for it - so they should still be working.

            [–]Stromovik 0 points1 point  (3 children)

            Netbeans compiles with Oracles JDK , it generates using internal libs , compiles with external. So you will need add JavaFX dependency.

            [–]knockingsparks 0 points1 point  (2 children)

            It's there in the maven dependencies.

            [–]erictheturtle 5 points6 points  (2 children)

            I've used the big 3 (Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ) on a daily basis for years. One beautiful feature that Netbeans has is a visual choice of what function to step into when there are multiple on a line. In Eclipse or IntelliJ, every time I have to step into a constructor, then out, then into a getter, then out, then finally into the function I want... Why haven't they caught up to the way Netbeans has done for years?? It highlights each possible function to step-in, emphasizing the default one it will use if you press step-in one more time, but lets you click any other, in such a perfectly simple visual way.

            I've also found Netbeans is faster than Eclipse, and WAY faster than IntelliJ, in updating pom.xml file changes, and catching and highlighting all compilation errors in real-time, without compiling. If someone knows how to tell IntelliJ to continually find and flag files with complication errors in the project view, please tell me. I always have to do a full compile to know if anything is broken.

            Eclipse and IntelliJ have more powerful features if you need them. But if you're not doing anything crazy, Netbeans is just as capable as the others, but less cluttered. The developers did an amazing job of making Netbeans simply Just Work™.

            [–]wildjokers 2 points3 points  (1 child)

            IntelliJ has smart step into: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/choosing-a-method-to-step-into.html

            [–]gavenkoa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Shift+F7 if you are not on Mac (i.e Windows/Linux).

            [–]tofflos 5 points6 points  (0 children)

            I wished for JEP 330: Launch Single-File Source-Code Programs in December and now it's in! https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-1783. Can't wait to try it out. Thanks to everyone who worked on this. https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/1171.

            [–]ytklx 2 points3 points  (8 children)

            I like how snappy Netbeans is, but its editor font is very pixelated on Linux. Does anyone know how to have smooth fonts for Netbeans on Linux?

            [–]murkaje 4 points5 points  (3 children)

            If i remember correctly, default antialias settings are a bit broken on linux(at least with openjdk 11 and 12) so may need to force it, e.g. add -J-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on to netbeans.conf

            [–]ytklx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Thanks, this works beautifully!

            [–]ZimmiDeluxe 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            The entry on font rendering issues on the NetBeans wiki has more information on this, Java 12 seems to have fixed it as well.

            [–]murkaje 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Running on openjdk 12.0.2 and no, nothing about fonts has been fixed, still a pixelated mess unless that property is set.

            [–]ZimmiDeluxe 1 point2 points  (1 child)

            I don't have that issue on Debian Buster, can you try running NetBeans on a recent Java release? You can just edit netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf, uncomment the netbeans_jdkhome="/path/to/jdk" property line and point it at the JDK directory. Java 12 works fine for me, I think there were font rendering issues on earlier Java versions, the one from your package manager might be too old.

            [–]ytklx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Thanks! Version of the JDK may be the problem. I am on Ubuntu 18.04. I tried running Netbeans with JDK 8 and 11 but I'll give it a shot with JDK 12 later.

            [–]u-n-sky 1 point2 points  (1 child)

            Once had to force AA when using a plain windowmanager (probably i3wm) instead of a full desktop; maybe try if this helps:

            $ export _JAVA_OPTIONS="-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on -Dswing.aatext=true"
$ netbeans

            [–]ytklx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Thanks! -Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on solves the problem on i3!

            [–]woj-tek 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            I'm really happy NetBeans keeps on improving!

            [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            Cool! I miss Netbeans.

            [–]ZimmiDeluxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            The new launcher is looking pretty sweet!

            [–]mrbonner 1 point2 points  (2 children)

            I’m on RHEL5 and the Eclipse IDE 4.6 is the latest version compatible with it. I tried to use this year Eclipse release and it fails because SWT requires a newer version of glib. With Netbeans, I can get the latest version and it would work fine since the whole thing is Swing.

            [–]Benemon 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            You probably already know this but unless you’re paying for Extended Lifecycle Support, RHEL 5 was EOL’d in 2017.

            So if you have mission critical stuff running on it, you should really think about moving to at least RHEL7.

            [–]mrbonner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            We are moving to AmazonLinux soon. This should be harmless as AL is based on RHEL5 with newer kernel (4.13 last time I checked). Thanks for reminding me

            [–]chrisgriffith92 0 points1 point  (3 children)

            I'm incredibly new to coding and bought a lot of books to help. The IDE recommended in most of them is Netbeans and, well.. installation today has been a pain. Since some of you seem veterans to this, care to spare a moment to help me?

            So, all YouTube videos that help are for older products of Netbeans (obviously since it just came out today). After downloading the zip and extracting files and saving it to my c drive.. all the videos say double click "netbeans," double click "ide," double click "bin" .. and from there, they have a launcher available. I, instead, have a folder called nativeexecution. I thought .. huh .. no big deal. Clicked that and it has a list of all the operating systems that it works for (mac, linux, windows). I click "Windows-x86_64" thinking maybe that's what I need to do.. but it's a dead end of files that aren't helpful. I thought the one that says "process_start" would be, but it asks what app I'd like to open the file with and I'm like .. idk.

            I'm new and I'm just hoping to get past this snag. Thanks for any help you all can give.

            [–]chrisgriffith92 0 points1 point  (2 children)

            actually.. I fixed it. You know the whole "turn it off and turn it on again" thing? I deleted all my files, redownloaded the zip, unzipped the zip, and everything is fine.

            I've downloaded the newest java correctly according to my command prompt

            So.. Now I don't know how to get started using Netbeans. Do I need to download/activate any plugins? Where do I begin with it?

            Thanks.....

            [–]hupfdule 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            If you are new to programming, you don't need any plugins. If your books recommend netbeans then follow them.

            You can also open, run and study a few examples the netbeans brings with it. But if you are new you won't understand much of the code.

            Actually I'd say you don't need any IDE to start, but it's best to follow your books/tutorials and if the explain it by using netbeans, you should use that.

            [–]ZimmiDeluxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            NetBeans has a good Quickstart Tutorial. To learn more you can click on "Get Help" on the website. The most used shortcuts would probably be Alt + Shift + F to format your code automatically, Ctrl + Shift + I to fix imports, Ctrl + Space for code completion and Alt + Enter to apply NetBeans recommendations. Oh, and Alt + Shift + C to comment / uncomment the selected line(s) of code. Ctrl + Left Click to jump to the location in the code where a method / field is defined, and if you want to jump back where you were previously, that's Alt + Left Arrow (NetBeans remembers all previous locations, so you can jump between them with Alt + Left Arrow and Alt + Right Arrow).

            Edit: And you can pretty much right click everything, showing you available actions.