Vincent Brabant's Blog

What I would like to see in NetBeans 4.2 !!!

In his blog, Ludovic Champenois, one of the lead enginners on the J2EE functionality in NetBeans, asked what we (NetBeans's users) would like to see in NetBeans 4.2 or even NetBeans 5.0.

So, hereafter is my wish list:

• Enhancements
  • Please look at all issues marked as Enhancement/Feature in Issuezilla of NetBeans. And say to the reporter if it's accepted or rejected.
  • Enhance the Form Editor to support new layout introduced in Tiger but also new JGoodies.
  • Enhance the Code Formatter
  • Enhance the Refactoring (we have not yet the basics (Extract Method, by example)
  • Add all features of Tasklist modules (with display of PMD result, and proposal of suggestions ...)
  • Have capability to create our own Ant based project, or to modify a existing one. (Why I have to always do the same modification _add a new target that generate PMD, Checkstyle, and Findbugs report_ in each Ant script I created in NetBeans ? It could be simpler if I have possibility to modify the Ant script that will be generated like I can modify existing templates for classes, ...
  • Add UML Support with Reverse Engineering (Be able to create UML class diagram based upon your sources, or be able to generate a sequence diagram based upon the method you selected)
  • Enhance support of Annotation (@Interface), to facilite generation of new java source or directly bytecode.
  • Enhance the Metric Module to have nice graphics and more metrics.
  • Fix the SCAN problem each time we start NetBeans.
• Add Support for
• Maven as Project Manager.
• TestNG as Unit Testing.
• Hibernate
• Struts
• Spring
• JBoss / WebSphere deployement
• AOP
• Reverse Engineering of Unit Tests: Based upon a TestCase I created, the skeletton of the Class to test is generated.
• Transform the SJSC (Sun Java Studio Creator, aka Rave) into a NetBeans Module. So I will not be obliged to use two tools based upon the same core (the netbeans platform) for my web development and always be obliged to switch to the other one.
• The main enhancement that must be done is to give a better documentation and facilitate the creation of modules for NetBeans.

When I compare the number of modules created for Eclipse and the number of modules created for NetBeans, I conclude that creation of a module for Eclipse seems simpler than creation of a module for NetBeans. If you do no enhancements in that domain, you will never be able to eclipse eclipse.

Success for NetBeans 4.1.

Vincent

Comments

• maven support already exists, check Mevenide at Codehaus. It's a completely separate project type, having the POM file as the only source of project definition. I suppose you meant that by the Project Manager.

  Posted by: mkleint on April 17, 2005 at 09:45 AM

• Hi Vincent,
  Most of your requests are valid and there are plans for most of them.
  I'm not sure I understand these, though: Hibernate, Struts, Spring, AOP. Exactly which kind of support would you like to see?

  -Alexis

  Posted by: alexismp on April 17, 2005 at 11:51 AM

• 
  Simple copy every little feature that the IntelliJ Idea Code Editor,
  has and stick it into the Netbeans Code Editor.

  Form Editor has to suport TableLayout and JGoodies
  FormsLayout. The previous version of TableLayoutSupport avaibale
  from the Netbeans site, does not install on Netbeans 4.0.

  Form Editor must allow the user to specifcy wether or not to use
  fully qualified class names, during code generation.

  Form Editor must break up the code generation block of
  initComponents into smaller parts. One idea is to use a separate
  method block for each Container class like a JPanel.

  
  Intentions Power Pack like IntelliJ or Quick Fix bulb like Eclipse.

  Local History??

  
  

  Posted by: swapnonil on April 17, 2005 at 11:57 AM

• Hi Alexis,
  Hibernate: Support for the xml files of Hibernate. Wizard to create them, Skeletton of class that does transaction, ..., ...

  Struts: Support to edit actions, to have a workflow of your Struts application, ...

  AOP: Look at AspectJ module for eclipse and you will understand what I want.

  Spring: Wizards, skeletton of classes, support configuration files, ...

  And for each of them, have somes samples projects where we can play with them.

  Posted by: vbrabant on April 17, 2005 at 12:10 PM

• Now that I am in the mood here are some more :)
  Each feature request is seprated by " : " to indicate which IDEs already have this feature.

  Generate Constructor using fields : Eclipse and IntelliJ
  Generate Accessor Method, getters and setters : Eclipse and IntelliJ
  Generate equals, hashcode and toString methods : IntelliJ
  Add Javadoc Comment, by simply selecting a method,variable or class : Eclipse
  Find References or Usage of a class, method or variable in an entire project i.e selecting a public or protected method should give me a list of all the callers of this method, in my entire project : Eclipse
  Outline pop up like CTRL+O : Eclipse
  Overwrite Implement Methods : Eclipse and IntelliJ
  Recent Fies pop-up like CTRL+E : Eclipse and IntelliJ
  Add Constructor Form Superclass : Eclipse
  

  Posted by: swapnonil on April 17, 2005 at 12:14 PM

• Hi swapnonil,

  Quick Fix Bulb will be present in the NetBeans 4.2. It's called Suggestion.

  Look at Roumen's blog

  
  

  Posted by: vbrabant on April 17, 2005 at 12:16 PM

• Hi swapnonil,
  I would like to know which version of NetBeans you are using ?

  
  Concerning point 3, I would like to say that NetBeans can also generate Accessor method like getters and setters. It was already there in 3.x releases.

  
  Concerning point 4, I think NetBeans has a better tool for Javadoc. You can find it in Tools | AutoComment. That autocomment tool was already there, when I began to use NetBeans, somewhere in 2002.

  
  Concerning point 5, NetBeans 4.x has a "find usage". Select a method or a class and click Alt-F7, or right click and select Find usages.

  
  Concerning point 6 , I think you are refering to the Navigator module, included now by default in NetBeans 4.1. Am I wrong ?

  
  Concerning point 7, I think you are refering to Tools | Override Methods. Am I wrong
  

  Posted by: vbrabant on April 17, 2005 at 01:12 PM

• Hi Vincent,

  I use Netbeans 3.6 almost daily, and I am primarily a tools developer.
  Now, there is a reason why I have not being able to locate or find out the latest code editor features in Netbeans.

  I stopped using the code editor since 2003.
  I prototype and design a lot of Swing GUIs with the Netbeans Form Editor, which is still the best in its' class. However when it comes to code editing, I simply use Eclipse.

  
  So I tend to have the same source code mounted on Netbeans as well Eclipse, and work on them simultaneously. The reason being Netbeans Form Editor is the best Swing GUI Designer, and Eclipse has the 2nd best Java Code Editor.

  Now that's called using the best of open source ;)

  
  

  Posted by: swapnonil on April 17, 2005 at 09:46 PM

• Enhance the 'CVS integrate':

  filling out CVS setting of this Site - java.net
  Versioning | Versioning Manager | Add | CVS | cvs.dev.java.net:/cvs | Module(s) | Select...
  -> the result is 'No module found'

  Most of IDEs can browse the repository and select the intending one then check out!

  BTW. the Suggestion is Great!
  

  Posted by: pprun on April 17, 2005 at 10:08 PM

• JBoss support?

  You'd better read this :

  http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/geertjan/

  And this is just a beginning... Geertjan when started is unstoppable...
  

  Posted by: ludo on April 20, 2005 at 09:13 PM

• Dear ludo,
  I read it and it's nice.
  But the problem is that is not out of the box.
  And personally, I like out of the box experience with NetBeans.
  I prefered if it was integrated into NetBeans.
  For example, it would be nice if, when I create a Web Project, it proposes the choice between Tomcat, SJS, and JBOSS or WebSphere.

  Posted by: vbrabant on April 23, 2005 at 08:35 AM

• I liked the old (3.6 and before) netbeans way to mount source folders.
  That why I didn't shift to netbeans 4.0 :(
  I've tried netbeans 4.1 rc1 and it seems better in this area but alas now I have to work with Eclipse so it is not from the 'field'.
  Would it be possible to have completion with project taglibs in JSP , this would be great ?
  And a better subversion integration but this also I didn't check recently.

  Posted by: ehsavoie on April 28, 2005 at 01:39 AM

• Dear ehsavoir,
  You said that you have to work with Eclipse.
  But maybe you can try the Import Eclipse Project in NetBeans.
  Then you can work with both if you want.

  Posted by: vbrabant on April 28, 2005 at 11:53 AM

• Alas no.
  It works great and I've used it but we are integrating a lot of apps with the libs moving constantly and the package also. Since all the others work with eclipse and update the .project, it is simplier to use eclipse :(
  But I hope to give Netbeans another try on my next project .

  Posted by: ehsavoie on May 02, 2005 at 08:08 AM

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