News

NetBeans 7.2 Release Candidate Available for Download

• By John K. Waters
• July 11, 2012

Release Candidate 1 of the NetBeans 7.2 IDE is now available for download. This version of the venerable open-source integrated software development environment comes with the expected bug fixes and performance improvements, but also adds new integration with the JavaFX Scene Builder design tool, support for multiple PHP frameworks and updated support for the Groovy language, among other changes.

Although NetBeans is historically best-known as a Java IDE, the environment supports a growing number of languages and frameworks. Along with PHP and Groovy, the IDE supports C, C++, JavaScript and Ajax, and Grails. This release adds features for Aunt, Maven and Hudson, all part of the project's stated goal that the IDE and an application platform aim to be used as a generic framework for building virtually any kind of application.

This version of NetBeans updates its Groovy support to version 1.8.6, and adds enhancements to Groovy/Grails code completion and editor hints features; supports PHP 5.4 and adds support for PHP projects on the Hudson continuous integration server; provides new C++ 11 standard support and improved parsing performance and reduced memory consumption for C/C++ development; delivers built-in support for the Subversion 1.7 version control system; and a 64-bit launcher for Windows.

With this release, the NetBeans community moves project scanning to the background, so that the process no longer blocks the editor feature and navigation. The community also promises that the scans are faster in this release.

This version also adds support for developing Java EE applications to run on Oracle's new Public Cloud, the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) designed to run the company's Fusion Applications. It also adds support for apps deployed on Amazon's Elastic Beanstalk.

In the NetBeans Platform, look for new @NavigatorPanel.Registration for registering navigator panels declaratively, new @Arg annotation for registering command line options declaratively, and the availability of @NbBundle.Messages on fields.

In addition the Scene Builder integration, JavaFX developers will find improved support for FXML and FX CSS, as well as FX-in-Swing Projects. The new version also provides default configurations for instant Run as WebStart and Run in Browser, project auto-update, and improved FX SDK/RT auto-detection.

"NetBeans comes up often as the most popular Java IDE after Eclipse," said Al Hilwa, program director in the Application Development Software group of industry analyst firm IDC. "It captures the segment of no-nonsense Java developer that is not as keen to cook their IDE from scratch. It consistently comes up in our surveys as the second most popular Java IDE after Eclipse"

A complete list of new features and extensive details are available on the NetBeans.org New and Noteworthy page.

The NetBeans open source IDE is available under a dual license consisting of the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) v1.0 and GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.

Release Candidate 1 of NetBeans 7.2 is available for download here.