README

NetBeans IDE - Release 3.4

Contents

Introduction
What's Changed In This Release
What's New In This Release
System Requirements
3.1 Hardware
3.2 Operating System
3.3 Software
Installation
The Launcher and Startup Parameters
Compatibility/Upgrading
Known Problems
Documentation
More Information

Introduction

Welcome to NetBeans IDE release 3.4, a modular, standards-based integrated development environment (IDE), written in Java. NetBeans is not just an IDE. NetBeans is:

Read more about NetBeans...

You can find the latest information about this release on the Release 3.4 pages.

What's Changed In This Release

Some features that existed in previous NetBeans releases have been removed from this release:

If you develop modules for NetBeans, check the NetBeans Upgrade Guide for information on API changes.

What's New In This Release

The NetBeans 3.4 release contains many new features and enhancements.

The complete list of new features implemented in this release is available in the IDE's installation folder in the CHANGES.html file.

System Requirements

Since NetBeans is written in pure Java, it should run on any working implementation of JavaTM 2 SDK, Standard Edition.

3.1 Hardware

The hardware requirements are similar for all platforms, but it may differ slightly for some cases. The recommended configuration for running the NetBeans IDE is: Note: If your system's memory is lower than the above recommendation, you should set a lower maximum heap size in the bin/ide.cfg file. For example, if your system has 64 Mbytes of memory, you can change the -J-Xmx96m parameter to -J-Xmx48m.

3.2 Operating System

Any operating system supporting Java(TM) 2 SDK, Standard Edition. Below is a list of platforms that the NetBeans IDE can run on. If you know about any other platform, please let us know.

3.3 Software

NetBeans requires a Java 2-compatible JVM. Download the latest version of the appropriate JDK (v. 1.3.x or 1.4.x) from the following sites:

If you are running on a Microsoft Windows system, please note that the runide.exe installer does not detect beta versions of the JDK. You can set the -jdkhome jdk_home_dir parameter in the ide.cfg file if you want to use a different JDK than the one detected by the installer. See The Launcher and Startup Parameters for more information.

Installation

For all platforms you can download the .zip or the .tar.gz or the .tar.bz2 archive file and unpack it on the hard disk using your favorite tool. Then you must customize the startup parameters to tell the IDE where to find the SDK. Please read the Launcher and Startup Parameters section for details.

On Microsoft Windows platforms, you can download and run an .exe point-and-click installer that guides you through the required steps.

Several ".bin" executable Installshield installers are available for various UNIX platforms. You may need to make these executable before running :

$ chmod +x NetBeans.bin
$ ./NetBeans.bin

While the installer will search for any installed JDKs, and prompt you for which NetBeans should use, you can speed the install up by specifying a JDK on the command line:

$ ./NetBeans.bin -is:javahome <path_to_your_jdk>

On OpenVMS

On Mac OS X

The Launcher and Startup Parameters

The IDE is run by a launcher. Launchers for several platforms are located in the bin subdirectory of the installation directory.

For UNIX, the Bourne shell script runide.sh is the launcher.
For Microsoft Windows, use the runide.exe or the runidew.exe executable. runide.exe is a Microsoft Windows console application. When you run runide.exe, a console opens on the desktop with stderr and stdout output from the NetBeans IDE. You can type Ctrl-Break to get a thread dump, or type Ctrl-C to quit the whole program. runidew.exe is the executable for running the NetBeans IDE as a Windows application without a console.
For OS/2 runideos2.cmd is the launcher.
For OpenVMS runideopenvms.com is the launcher.

The launcher loads the JVM, builds the IDE's classpath, passes it along with some default parameters to the JVM, and lets the JVM launch the Java application. It also restarts the IDE after you have used the Update Center.

You can pass startup parameters to the launcher using the ${IDE_HOME}/bin/ide.cfg file. The launcher tries to read this file before it starts parsing the command line options. You can break the options into multiple lines.

The following options are available:

-h
-help
print descriptions of common startup parameters.

-jdkhome jdk_home_dir
use the specified version of the Java(TM) 2 SDK instead of the default SDK. By default on Windows systems, the loader looks into the Windows registry and uses the latest SDK available.

-classic
use the classic JVM, instead of the default Java HotSpot Client VM.

-cp:p additional_classpath
prepend the specified classpath to the IDE's classpath. This option is generally not recommended for any purpose.

-cp:a additional_classpath
-cp additional_classpath
append the specified classpath to the IDE's classpath. This option is generally recommended only for adding custom look and feel implementation JARs, which you may instead add to the NetBeans lib/ext/ directory. See the online help for information on mounting user development libraries.

-Jjvm_flag
pass the specified flag directly to the JVM.

-ui UI_class_name
use a given class as the IDE's look and feel.

-fontsize size
use a given size in points as the basic font size for the IDE user interface.

-locale language[:country[:variant]]
use the specified locale.

-userdir userdir
explicitly specify the userdir, which is the location in which user settings are stored. If this option is not used on UNIX the location is ${HOME}/.netbeans/3.4. On Microsoft Windows systems, the default is .netbeans\3.4 beneath your default Windows profile area (e.g. c:\Documents and Settings\yourlogin).
-J-Dnetbeans.winsys.dnd=true
enable drag and drop support in the IDE. This feature is turned off by default because of some bugs that make the behavior slow and unpredictable.
-J-Dnetbeans.popup.linuxhack=true
under some Linux window managers, this option fixes bug #12496, in which contextual menus appear in the upper left corner of the screen.
-J-Dnetbeans.tab.close.button.enabled=false
Remove the close button from tabs in the Source Editor, Explorer, and other windows.

Compatibility/Upgrading

When you first run the NetBeans IDE Release 3.4, you can import the settings that you used in a previous installation of the IDE. These settings include project-specific settings and global options. If you choose not to import settings from a previous release, the IDE begins with a set of default settings. The Import Wizard guides you through the choices.

You can import settings from the NetBeans IDE v. 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3. You can also import settings from Sun ONE Studio (formerly Forte for Java) software versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0.

In the NetBeans IDE Release 3.2 or above and Forte for Java 3.0 or above, you can find the user directory when running the software. Choose Help | About, and click the Detail tab.

Though it is possible to import settings from a previous IDE installation into the NetBeans IDE Release 3.4, it is not possible to import settings from the NetBeans IDE Release 3.4 into an earlier IDE release.

Known Problems

The following are some of the major unresolved issues for this release: Use the Issuezilla bug tracking system for checking currently open bugs.

Documentation

Documentation is provided for the NetBeans IDE in the form of online help. To access all of the available online help, choose Help | Contents.

More Information

There is extensive information on the NetBeans project website, http://www.netbeans.org/. Included on the website are a FAQ and instructions on how to subscribe to mailing lists where you can ask questions, post comments, or help others.

As NetBeans is an open-source project, you can get access to the source code, bug database, and much more at http://www.netbeans.org/.

More information about the NetBeans IDE, Release 3.4 is available at http://www.netbeans.org/devhome/docs/releases/34/index.html.