How to Use NetBeans
by Larry Arnoldy
NetBeans is an Integrated
Development System (IDE) for editing, compiling, and running Java
programs. It is an excellent Java IDE and works on Windows,
Linux, the Mac, and Unix. Best of all, it does not cost one cent. The
NetBeans
home page is at www.netbeans.org/
. The current version as of this writing is 3.6, and these pages refer
to this version.
This is a series of How-To files for students of the UMUC
CMIS102A and CMIS140A courses using the textbook An Introduction
to Object Oriented
Programming with Java 3rd Edition by Thomas Wu). They are written
to enable one to
quickly learn the basics of NetBeans
for editing, compiling, and running Java programs. These How-To files
do
not attempt to make anyone an expert with NetBeans nor do they come
close
to teaching everything about NetBeans. They merely try to teach only
that
which is needed for UMUC's CMIS102A and CMIS140A courses.
There are several alternates to using NetBeans for Java programming,
such as
- A simple text editor such as the Windows Notepad and the
DOS/Linux
command line for compiling and running programs. (Not really recommend,
but it does work)
- Textpad (30 day free trial,
then $29), a nice editor with facility to compile and run Java programs.
- JGrasp (free), a
full Java IDE, but lacking many of the nice features of NetBeans.
I have tried all three of the above, but prefer NetBeans. I urge you to
give NetBeans a try and hope that these How-To files convince you that
NetBeans is the IDE that you should use. NetBeans has a rather elegant
why of handling Java's classpath environment variable. If you are using
one of the other development systems, you might be interested in
looking at the instructions for
setting the Java classpath. Note: The instructions for the
classpath that are are described in the preceding link do not apply to
users of NetBeans.
After you start using NetBeans and become familiar with it, you will
probably notice that there are alternate ways of doing many of the
things that are explained here. That is normal. There are usually
several ways of performing a particular task with
NetBeans. To keep things simple,
these How-To files usually show only one way of doing something. If you
discover an alternate way to do something and prefer that method, them
by all means use that method.
NetBeans requires that Java 2 be installed in order to work with Java
files. Java 2 should be installed first, then NetBeans.
Last modified: 13 June 2004
