After several years of going back and forth between the mainland and Hawaii, we decided to make the Big Island our permanent home. It was hard saying a final goodbye to my California friends, but it will nice being able to spend more time with the friends I have made here.

If there are any Java or Ruby user groups on the Big Island, please post a comment and let me know.

We are in the process of planning the documentation for NetBeans Ruby and would like to know what information you are interested in. Is there a certain tutorial that you want? Is there a video that you would like to see? Please let us know what information would help you better complete your job, and we will add it to our documentation plan wiki. Feel free to edit the wiki and add your own document requests.

Also, take a look at our two existing tutorials, Creating a Ruby Weblog in 10 Mintues and Putting Flickr on Rails, contributed by NetBeans evangelist Brian Leonard. To send comments on these tutorials, use the Send Us Your Feedback button on the bottom of the tutorial. It's been fun corresponding with the readers who have already sent feedback.

We welcome your contributions in other ways as well:

• Contribute to the NetBeans Ruby wiki. These contributions might include tutorials, FAQs, articles, and tips and tricks. You can write a whole article, or send us the information and we will turn it into an article for you. If you are unsure where to start, an excellent source of information is the NetBeans Community Docs Page. Additionally, if you need any help or have any questions, please contact us. We work closely with James Branam, the NetBeans Community Docs Manager.

• Write a hint. Tor Norbye just implemented the Quick Fix feature for Ruby in NetBeans and has invited the community to jump in and add their own quick fixes. Tor's written a How to Write a Hint document, which tells you everything you need to know.

• Join the mailing lists. Of particular interest are dev@ruby.netbeans.org, used to discuss development of the Ruby features for NetBeans, and users@ruby.netbeans.org, for general support and discussions of NetBeans Ruby. To subscribe to and participate in the aliases, please visit the Mailing List page.

If you would like the components to remain centered on a page when the browser is resized, try this trick.

1. Open the Web Pages > resources > stylesheet.css style sheet and add the following style definitions. You will use these styles to define the colum styles in a three column grid panel.
   

   .ctrFirstColumn {    width: 10%; } .ctrSecondColumn {    width: 80%; } .ctrThirdColumn {    width: 10%; }

   
   



2. Set the widths percentages to what works for your page.
   
   
   
   


3. Save the changes, then close and reopen the IDE, so that the IDE picks up the new styles.
   
   
   
   


4. Add a Grid Panel to the page in the top left corner.
   
   
   
   
   


5. In the Properties window, click the ellipsis (...) button for the style property. Select Position, set both the Width and Height to 100%, and click OK.
   
   
   
   


6. Set the columns property to 3.
   
   
   
   


7. Click the ellipsis (...) button for the columnClasses. Select ctrFirstColumn and click the > button. Repeat for ctrSecondColumn and ctrThirdColumn. Click OK. These styles are applied to the columns in the grid panel in the order that you list them.
   
   
   
   


8. Drop something into the first column, such as a blank Static Text component. As you drop each component into the Grid Panel, it occupies the first available column, so the first component that you drop goes in the first column, the second component goes in the second column, the third component goes in the third column, and the fourth component goes in a new row in the first column. A blank Static Text component is an easy way to occupy the left and right margins with a non-visible component.
   
   
   
   


9. For the center column, drop a component from the Layout section, such as a Grid Panel or a Layout Panel. This is the component that you will use to layout all the components in the page. You can nest the layout components as necessary in order to achieve the right layout.
   
   
   
   You most likely want to set the width properties of the layout components to 100% or some other percentage value instead of using pixel sizes.
   
   


10. When you add a Table component, set its width property to 100% or some other percentage value. (See the tips in the Laying out Multiple Table Components blog entry.) One thing to remember, is that whenever you work with the table layout, you have to check to make sure that the IDE did not change the width property back to a pixel width. If you find that your middle panel is not centering, check the width values of the Table components to make sure they are set to percentages.
    
    
    


11. Drop a blank component, such as a blank Static Text component, to occupy the right column.
    
    
12. Run the web app and resize the width of the browser. The components should remain centered.
    

• Set the Group Panel component's block property to true. This encloses the panel in a <div> tag.
  
  
• You can set the Group Panel component's separator property to <br /><br /> to put spacing between the tables.
  
  
• Set the Table component's width property to 100%. If you make changes to the table, the IDE may reset this property so keep checking to make sure it is 100%.
  
  
• I find it best to leave the Table Column width properties blank or set them at percentage amounts, such as 10%.