Chapter 1, Getting Started with NetBeans, describes the different versions of NetBeans that are available to download and shows you how to install NetBeans from an installable package or from the source code.

Chapter 2, Editing Files and Projects, teaches you about the many different facilities available while editing files. You will learn about macros, project groups, the NetBeans windowing system, and much more.

Chapter 3, The NetBeans Developer's Life Cycle, explains how NetBeans helps with the tasks that every developer does on a daily basis—running, debugging, testing, and profiling applications.

Chapter 4, Managing Services, shows you how NetBeans manages external services such as Maven repositories, PaaS, and continuous integration systems.

Chapter 5, Database Persistence, describes the features that NetBeans provides to help write database applications, from both a code-first and data-first perspective.

Chapter 6, Desktop Development, describes the excellent features provided by NetBeans for developing desktop Swing applications.

Chapter 7, Creating the Business Layer, teaches you the tools provided to help developers write the business layers of applications, describing subjects such as EJBs and bean validation.

Chapter 8, Creating the Web Tier, explains the different features available for Java web developers, including details of creating Spring web applications and using CSS preprocessors.

Chapter 9, Creating and Consuming Web Services, explains how NetBeans makes it straightforward to create and consume both RESTful and SOAP-based web services.

Chapter 10, Extending NetBeans, describes how to create NetBeans plugins for those situations where you need to customize the IDE along with the details of how to start using NetBeans as the platform for desktop applications.

To use this book, you need to download and install the NetBeans IDE on either Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.

You also need to have a modern version of Java (preferably, Java 8). To benefit the most when learning about web services and EJB-related technologies, a Java EE application server is required. The enterprise download bundle of NetBeans is supplied with full support for GlassFish 4 Open Source edition.

This book is written for Java developers of all the levels who want to gain more knowledge about how their IDE works and learn new techniques to enable them to become more productive when using NetBeans.

A reasonable level of Java and Java EE knowledge is assumed.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "From there, double-click on the included NetBeans xxx.mpkg file to start the installation (the exact names of the .dmg and .mpkg files varies, depending upon the version and bundle downloaded)."

A block of code is set as follows:

public class Main {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        Greeter greeter = new Greeter();
        
        System.out.println(greeter.greet("David"));
    }
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<#assign licenseFirst = "/*">
<#assign licensePrefix = " * ">
<#assign licenseLast = " */">
<#include "${project.licensePath}">

<#if package?? && package != "">
package ${package};

</#if>
/**
 * Project: ${project.name}
 * ${url}
 *
 * @author ${user}
 */
public class ${name} {

}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

chmod +x netbeans-<xxx>-linux.sh

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "From here, we can customize NetBeans by clicking on the Customize button."

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To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.

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