NetBeans IDE 6.8 Release Information

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 that enable developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications using the Java platform, as well as JavaFX, PHP, JavaScript and Ajax, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, Groovy and Grails, and C/C++.

The NetBeans project is supported by a vibrant developer community and offers extensive documentation and training resources as well as a diverse selection of third-party plugins.

Release Overview

NetBeans IDE 6.8 is the first IDE to offer complete support for the entire Java EE 6 spec with improved support for JSF 2.0/Facelets, Java Persistence 2.0, EJB 3.1 including using EJBs in web applications, RESTful web services, and GlassFish v3. We also recommend it for developing with the latest JavaFX SDK 1.2.1, and for creating PHP web applications with the new PHP 5.3 release or with the Symfony Framework.

Our unique integration of Project Kenai, a collaborative environment for hosting open-source projects, now comes with full JIRA support, and improved instant messenger and issue tracker integration. We also added features to the IDE's Maven and database integration, and improved the editor and tools integration of Ruby, Groovy, and C/C++ projects.

Get the NetBeans IDE 6.8

Documentation

Use the following documents to get started with NetBeans IDE 6.8.

Feature Highlights

Java Enterprise Edition 6 Web Projects with Java EE 6 and Java EE 6 Web profiles, EJBs in web applications

EJB 3.1 support, EJB project file wizard also supports Singleton session type

RESTful web services (JAX-RS 1.1), GlassFish Metro 2.0 web services (JAX-WS 2.2), JAXB 2.2

Java Persistence JPA 2.0, deployment, debugging and profiling with GlassFish v3 application server Web Projects with JavaServer Faces 2.0 (Facelets) Code completion, error hints, namespace completion, documentation popups, and tag auto-import for Facelets

Editor support for Facelets libraries, composite components, expression language, including generators for JSF and HTML forms

Customizable JSF components palette generates JSF forms and JSF data tables from entities

New File wizard generates customizable CRUD (create/read/update/delete) JSF pages from entities

Broader usage of annotations instead of deployment descriptors JavaFX Added support for the latest JavaFX SDK 1.2.1

Improved code completion

Editor Hints: Fix Imports, Surround With, Implements Abstract Methods, and more

Improved navigation: Hyperlinks, Go to Type, Find Usages Kenai.com: Connected Developer Full JIRA support (plugin from update center)

Project dashboard with more member and project details, improved search and navigation, easier project sharing

Improved instant messenger integration: Online presence, private and group chat with Kenai members, easy to add links to code / files /issues / stack traces to messages

Improved issue tracker integration PHP Full PHP 5.3 support: namespaces, lambda functions and closures, syntax additions: NOWDOC, ternary conditions, jump labels, __callStatic()

Symfony Framework support: Symfony projects, Symfony commands, shortcuts, PHP syntax coloring in YAML files

Create a PHP project from a remote PHP application

PHPUnit, Code Coverage, FTP/SFTP integration improvements, exclude PHP project folders from scanning/indexing Maven New Project from Maven archetype catalog and improved support for Java EE 6, Groovy, Scala projects

Customizable dependency exclusion in dependency graph

Maven CheckStyle plugin

"Update from Kenai" action for Kenai.com-hosted Maven projects Ruby Support for creating Rails 2.3.4 apps with dispatchers, JRuby 1.4, Ruby 1.9 debugging, and RSpec 1.2.7

Improved rename refactoring, type inference, and navigation

Specifying arguments for Rails servers

Run/Debug File with arguments, also for files not part of a project C and C++ Profiling: New Microstate Accounting indicator, Thread Map view, Hot Spots view, Memory Leaks view, Sync Problems view

Faster synchronization during remote development

Support for gdbserver attach and easier attaching to already running processes Miscellaneous Improvements Java Debugger: Mark an object in the variables tree with a name to refer to it in expressions

Database integration: Code completion in SQL Editor now also for DELETE, DROP, UPDATE statements, and for reserved keywords

Groovy 1.6.4 & Grails: Improved code completion, including methods introduced via AST Transformations

Learn more about the features of the latest development build at the NetBeans IDE New and Noteworthy page!