open source IDE

[Tony Evans]

Can anyone reccomend a good open source IDE I uded to use Forte4j, but I think that you have to purchase a licence to use it now.
Thanks for any help
Tony

[Marilyn de Queiroz]

I'm moving this to the IDE's forum where such things are discussed regularly.

[Matthew Phillips]

If you search this forum, you will see several recommendations. I personally prefer Eclipse.

[Dirk Schreckmann]

NetBeans is worth checking out, if only to discover the things that Eclipse doesn't do.

[Tony Evans]

Thanks everyone for your help, I decided to give NetBeans a try.
Cheers Tony

[Dirk Schreckmann]

I've not yet used it, but jEdit is reported to be pretty darn nice.

[Jeff Langr]

Originally posted by Dirk Schreckmann:
NetBeans is worth checking out, if only to discover the things that Eclipse doesn't do.

Greetings Dirk,
I've downloaded NetBeans twice and given up on it twice; the whole thing just rubs me the wrong way for some reason. Perhaps having someone guide me through it might have helped. In any case, what are some of the things that NetBeans does that Eclipse does not? One thing I was disappointed in with respect to NetBeans was its refactoring support.
Thanks,
Jeff

[Dirk Schreckmann]

Originally posted by Jeff Langr:
I've downloaded NetBeans twice and given up on it twice; the whole thing just rubs me the wrong way for some reason. Perhaps having someone guide me through it might have helped.

Perhaps you'd appreciate following the "An Introduction to Java Development with NetBeans IDE - A NetBeans IDE Project Basics Tutorial" article I put together a while ago. Also available in a printable version.

In any case, what are some of the things that NetBeans does that Eclipse does not? One thing I was disappointed in with respect to NetBeans was its refactoring support.

NetBeans has free JSP, html, xml support out of the box. It ain't the greatest, but it's a lot more than Eclipse offers. In my experience, ant tasks are easier to configure and run through the IDE (Eclipse seems to mess with the ant runtime settings in some strange way I don't understand). And GUI developers will appreciate the built-in visual GUI editing environment, also not found in Eclipse out of the box.
The NetBeans refactoring support is disappointing. Luckily others like RefactorIT have filled this gap with plug-ins.
I really hate that Eclipse keeps changing the way plug-ins work with each incremental release.
I'm not suggesting that I prefer NetBeans over Eclipse. I just like to know what features different IDEs provide, so I have a better idea of some "ideal".

[Jeff Langr]

Thanks Dirk,
Very helpful, I'll take a look at the article. I've certainly been disappointed with the plugin and built-in support for JSPs, XML, Ant, etc. with Eclipse.
I hope NetBeans does well, so as to start a leapfrogging battle.
Jeff