NetBeans RCP—Das Entwicklerheft, Jürgen's original German book about the NetBeans Platform, was published in August, 2008. What's happened with the NetBeans Platform since then? Well, quite a lot, actually! NetBeans Platform 6.9 has been released, sporting a large set of features which Jürgen might only have dreamed of while working on his book. Most significantly, the new NetBeans Platform support for integrating OSGi bundles needs mentioning in this regard. Apart from that, there are many other new features, including new and changed APIs, which to a greater or lesser extent have an impact on the text and the code that the original book provided. Wherever relevant, and always as seamlessly as possible, these new features have been introduced into this translated and updated version.

The spirit of Jürgen's original book remains intact: this is not a complete reference guide to each and every detail that the NetBeans Platform provides Java desktop developers. For those purposes, "The Definitive Guide to the NetBeans Platform" (Apress) and "Rich Client Programming: Plugging into the NetBeans Platform" (Prentice Hall) continue to be the best sources, together with the many NetBeans Platform tutorials (http://platform.netbeans.org/tutorials), of course. However, after reading those books and documents, many readers have asked themselves: "OK, that's all very interesting, but how do I get started?" That's what this book is all about, taking you by the hand and showing you many aspects of the NetBeans Platform in step-by-step instructions, within one coherent whole.

Because of this approach, some readers may feel somewhat disappointed. For example, Maven-based applications are not addressed at all in this book, simply because that was not relevant to the particular application that Jürgen set about to create. And, most topics in this book could deserve more pages, more explanation, and deeper analysis. However, a balance had to be made between providing a practical guide to the newbie, which this book tries to do, and providing a complete and thorough reference guide, various forms of which already exist. Hopefully the reader will forgive us for any errors made in this balancing act.

The NetBeans Platform community pitched in and translated this book together. The translation team was as follows: Jean-Marc Borer, Zane Cahill, Costantino Cerbo, Stefan Alexander Flemming, Michael Holste, Peti Horozoglu, Martin Klähn, Victor Ott, Christian Enrique Portilla Pauca, Christian Pervoelz, Sven Reimers, Peter Rogge, Johannes Strassmayr, Florian Vogler, and Fionn Ziegler. Many thanks for their enthusiasm and hard work! I recommend them all as translators.

Many thanks also to the many reviewers, in particular Jaroslav Tulach, Anton Epple, and Tom Wheeler. In fact, in the Pantheon of NetBeans, Tom Wheeler is at least a minor deity on the order of Eos.

From the team at Packt, many people deserve praise and thanks. In particular, Prasad Rai and Douglas Paterson, for making this book possible, as well as Rakesh Shejwal and Gauri Iyer, for their endless patience and support.

Happy reading and learning about the NetBeans Platform!

Geertjan Wielenga

Technical Trainer & Writer

NetBeans