NetBeans 6.5 now in beta release

Good news to all Java guys! NetBeans 6.5 is already available on beta release. The NetBeans IDE is an award-winning Integrated Development Environment available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. The NetBeans project consists of an open-source IDE and an application platform which enable developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications using the Java platform, C/C++, JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy, and PHP. It is supported by a vibrant developer community and offers a diverse selection of third-party plugins. The NetBeans IDE is a must-download for software developers.

Release Overview

The NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta release provides several new features and enhancements, such as a new IDE-wide QuickSearch shortcut, more user-friendly interface, and automatic Compile on Save. In addition to full support of all Java editions (Java SE, Java EE, Java ME), the NetBeans IDE is the ideal tool for software development with PHP, C/C++, Groovy and Grails, Ruby and Rails, Ajax and JavaScript. The 6.5 release also includes enhanced support for web frameworks (Hibernate, Spring, JSF, JPA), the GlassFish application server, and databases.

Feature Highlights

PHP PHP Editor (Code completion, syntactic and semantic code highlighting) Support for heredoc notation and PHTML Xdebug Generators for MySQL database code snippets

JavaScript and Ajax JavaScript Editor and Debugger JavaScript Library Manager Yahoo UI, Woodstock, jQuery, Dojo, Scriptaculous, Prototype libraries CSS Editor

Java EE & Web Development Enhanced support for Spring, Hibernate, JSF, JSF CRUD generator, JPA (Java Persistence API) Create RESTful web services from database tables or from JPA entities Drag and drop SaaS services into PHP files SQL Editor Improvements (code completion, save/recall queries, and more)

Groovy and Grails Develop pure Groovy apps or use Groovy in Java SE projects Groovy editor (code completion, highlighting, and more) Grails web application framework Open existing Grails applications without adding metadata

Ruby and Rails Rake improvements: Rake Runner and a pre-generated Rake file Debugger: Conditional breakpoints and catchpoints Ruby projects accept JVM options from command line New Test Runner interface for displaying test results

GlassFish v3 Prelude for Web Development Modular, OSGi based architecture Small footprint, fast startup and deployment Support for scripting, including JRuby

C/C++ Improved code completion, error highlighting, and semantic highlighting Call graph, Memory window Remote development Packaging of application as tar files, zip files, or SVR4 packages

Java ME New project wizard for adding custom components to the Visual Designer Palette New SVG UI components in the enhanced SVG Composer enable rich UI design New Data Binding Custom Components in the Visual Designer Palette Upgraded obfuscation tool to ProGuard 4.2 and test framework to JMUnit 1.1.0

Java SE Multi-threaded Java debugging Java Swing GUI Builder: TreeModel Editor for JTrees Improved Eclipse project import and synchronization

IDE Tools and Usability One QuickSearch shortcut for IDE actions, files, options, and docs Support for Windows UNC paths (shared network folders) Automatic Compile on Save / Deploy on Save

For more information visit http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/65/