News

MyEclipse 5.0 Integrates Matisse GUI Builder

• By John K. Waters
• August 7, 2006

Genuitec rolled out version 5.0 of its MyEclipse open-source IDE on Friday. This release is an enterprise Java, database, RAD, UML, POJO, AJAX, and rich-client development environment certified on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Among the notable features of this release is its integration of the popular Matisse GUI Builder from the NetBeans IDE 5.0, which supports developers building sophisticated graphical user interfaces. This feature makes MyEclipse the first IDE in which Swing and SWT coexist, says Genuitec's president Maher Masri. It's also the only IDE that currently integrates both Hibernate 3.1 and Spring 2.x, allowing developers to build small, container-like Spring apps that are Hibernate-aware, and vice versa.

This release also includes a full framework for Web services based on the Xfire SOAP framework, and a Web services wizard. "We're elevating Web services to a first-class concept in this release," says Masri, "so that, not only can you build rapid Web services applications, but you can also integrate what you already have."

The list of new features also includes, among others:

• Expanded database support for Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase, including the ability to utilize triggers and stored procedures;
• A direct-table data editing capability, which allows several tables to be edited simultaneously;
• A cross-platform Visual HTML Editor for Windows and Linux; and
• AJAX/Web 2.0 tool extensions for Linux and Mac OS.

MyEclipse began supporting AJAX late last year in the 4.11 release. Along with the support for Linux, Windows and Mac, version 5.0 offers more JavaScript debugging capabilities. However, there's no support yet for any specific AJAX frameworks. "We're taking a step back and sizing up the market," Masri says. "We're still waiting to see what our customers are using the most."

Genuitec was a founding member of the Eclipse Foundation, and currently serves on its board of directors. The company is also a founding member and sponsor of Eclipse Plug-In Central, a resource for open-source and commercial Eclipse plug-ins. To date the company claims more than a quarter million users of its flagship MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench IDE.

"We bet on this technology four years ago because we saw it as a framework for any kind of application," says Masri. "The tooling is just a stepping stone into what will be a very, very exciting market 5 to 10 years from now."

Masri says that at least 50 percent of Genuitec's employees—including Masri himself—work in one capacity or another on an Eclipse project or effort.

The IDE has been available in "milestone" releases—the most recent was MyEclipse 5.0 M2.  Those earlier versions qualify Genuitec as the first company to offer a Callisto-compatible—and thus, an Eclipse 3.2-compatible—product. The Eclipse Foundation's Callisto Simultaneous Release initiative, unveiled last month, coordinated the synchronized release of 10 Eclipse projects. 

Genuitec is pricing MyEclipse 5.0 at $31.75 for an annual subscription to the standard edition and $52 for a professional-edition subscription.