NetBeans 6.5 beta is now available. The download page is a good place to get a first glimpse at the new features: JavaScript, Groovy, PHP, and more Java. The New and noteworthy document is another detailed resource (note that Milestone 2 = Beta). GlassFish v3 "Prelude" (what is "v3 Prelude"?) is included in the "Java Build" (124 MB) but also in the "Ruby" build (38 MB). In addition, these two quite self-explanatory features have been added: "Deploy-on-Change", "Compile-on-Save".

Both NetBeans and GlassFish are moving into being much larger than Java, the language.
Full roadmap for this NetBeans 6.5 release is here.

Geertjan and Patrick Keegan have published a new DZone Refcard for NetBeans 6.1. The card focuses on the Java IDE side. Check out Geertjan's Note or go directly to the RefCard. The card is similar to the GlassFish's RefCard we mentioned a few days ago.

Winston is asking for feedback on his proposal for a Generic Web Page Designer for NetBeans. The basic principle is to embed XULRunner (Wikipedia, Home, MozillaWiki, Tutorial, Use in Eclipse) into NetBeans. The notion seems reasonable but this is not my area, so, if you can provide feedback, please check out Winston's post. The actual NetBeans proposal is WebPageDesigner, the proposal for the prerequired embedding is EmbeddebBrowser.

InfoWorld just published a review of 9 Rails IDEs, including solutions based on Eclipse, IDEA and NetBeans to specialized solutions. The prices vary, going all the way up to $399 for CodeGear 3rdRail 1.1, but the winner, with an Excellent rating, is free: NetBeans 6.1.

Full details at: Lab test: Climb aboard Ruby on Rails.

The first Milestone of NetBeans 6.5 is now Available for Download. This release includes support for Groovy, Ruby, Spring, Hibernate, JPA and more, and GlassFish v3. Check New and Noteworthy for full details, but, arguably one of the most important additions is PHP support. See Overview Screencast, Documentation and the NetBeans/PHP Blog.

Brand new tutorial from Frank (Phantom) Jennings: how to use NetBeans 6.5 to develop a Hibernate application with the GlassFish Server and the MySQL Server. The tutorial uses the Sakila DB sample and the Latest NB 6.5 Build. Check it out at the Hibernate and WebApp Tutorial.

A couple of weeks ago Bhakti showed how to Install Metro on GF v3 TP2 but that didn't include proper NetBeans support. Martin has been working on the NetBeans module and there is now a version to try with the latest NB 6.5 developer build. Full details on how to download each component, including the two update centers, at Martin's Note. Note that JSR109 integration is not yet available; stay tuned for that. Enjoy! And report any issues to Martin and Bhakti.

New tutorial from Dongmei and Ken on how to use the latest NetBeans 6.1 to create a Web App using JSF and Hibernate on GlassFish. Tutorial is here; thanks to James for the tip. Note The tutorial uses GF v2; I suspect it would run on v3 also, but if somebody tries it, please let me know.

NetBeans 6.1 was just released and it is both a feature and a performance release. The feature part has to do with JavaScript support - the language everybody loves to hate (See Roberto's talk at JavaOne), MySQL improved support, Spring Framework support, Hibernate support, Axis 2, Sailfin support, and Jersey (RESTful Web Services) support.

It's also bringing back features lost in the translation from 5.5. to 6.0 such as JavaBeans support and the JSF CRUD Generator. NetBeans also now provides a more natural way to share libraries. All in all a lot of web and server-side features including support for the latest GlassFish v2ur2 release. The full list of features is here.

Performance is related to startup-time, completion speed, and memory consumption. Coming attractions include PHP support, JavaScript debugger, Groovy/Grails support, and more.

As always, the nice download matrix is available here. Congratulations to the team for yet another solid release!

Davis posted a screencast that shows how to plug GlassFish v3 (pre-TP2) into NetBeans 6.1 (RC). Check out the Note and the Screencast. Total elapsed time for the screencast is 2 minutes. And, if you pay attention you can also see the startup time for this (slow) version of GFv3 TP2 :-)

The NetBeans folks are releasing 6.1 Candidate Release (RC 1) today. That means they're pretty much on track for a final release in the next few weeks.

This release is a "performance release", brings back the JSF/JPA CRUD generator, provides much enhanced JavaScript support, integrated MySQL in the Database Explorer, introduces Sharable Libraries, and supports the latest version of GlassFish v2 (ur 2 builds in fact).

You can decide to download the 108-MB Web & Java EE bundle (or the all-you-can-eat bundle) and get GlassFish out of the box or simply add a separate GlassFish installation to NetBeans 6.1. You can also add Java EE and Web support to the 26-MB installer.

NetBeans 6.1 is looking really good! Unfortunately, I've been too busy recently to report on all the recent improvements but here is one from Tor: Improved JavaScript Support. The NetBeans support for languages other than Java is improving very quickly, besides Ruby and JavaScript there is also Groovy... plus whatever else has not yet been announced (JavaOne is around the corner, you know...).

The Woodstock JSF Component Library (Woodstock@TA) is open source and enterprise-ready, is used in the GlassFish AppServer and other projects and is included in the NetBeans IDE. Woodstock is changing in NetBeans 6.1 and James Branam is documenting the changes. There is a new Look to the Palette, and new Accordion and Bubble Help components. Expect more updates as we get closer to Woodstock 4.2 and NB6.1 final; see Roadmap.

You can download the Woodstock components manually from their Web Site, or you get them bundled with the NetBeans 6.x distributions, or you can download them automatically through the GlassFish Update Center.

Some additional Woodstock links include: the Live Preview site, the Documentation Hub and a list of the Browsers and Containers Supported. The latter include GlassFish - duh! - and also Tomcat 6, WebLogic 10 and JBoss 5.

NetBeans 6.1 Milestone 1 is feature-frozen. Vince reports on the improved integration with the sailfin project with : - Explicit reference to Sailfin in the 'Add Server Instance' dialog (vs. GlassFish) - SIP Servlet applications visible in the "Services" tab If you feel brave-enough to test the latest nightly builds, follow this link. As it stands, NetBeans 6.1 is stalled for the end of April. Previous coverage of sailfin is HERE.

NetBeans 6.0 is finally out. This is a big release; the main theme is The Only IDE You Need and it include support for JavaSE, Web and JavaEE, Ruby and Mobility. Check out the Home Page, Recent News and the Latest Newsletter Issue, and the Download Page. There are many people commenting on the release; including those from the Mobility Team, Winston, Roman, AlexisMP and Charles.