How to use NetBeans in Java

The NetBeans IDE is open source and is written in JAVA programming language. It provides services common to creating desktop applications- such as window and menu management, setting storage -- and is also the first IDE to fully support JDK 5.0 features. The NetBeans platform and IDEare free for commercial and non-commercial use, and they are supported by

Sun Microsystems. It can be downloaded from http://www.netbeans.org/  

1. Using NetBeans:

To be able to successfully build programs it is recommended to follow the

intended procedure.

First it’s important to create a new project. Various project types are available;

however in this case the intended type will be Java Application.

Choosing a project

Setting up a project

 

 We change the name of the project to something of this sort: unit_1. Usually it is also a good idea to set up the location in which to store the projects and future work in a well known directory. Here the chosen location is: netbeans_home/workspace. To keep control over the way that classes (e.g. the main launching class) are defined it is recommended to untick

the two check boxes displayed in above figure.

Creating a new package

After Finish is clicked the new project structure will be in place, however we

now need to extend this by adding a new package. In this manner classes

associated with the same topics can be stored in one package. The end result

will be multiple packages in one project, each having a number of classes

(programs). The process is simple, just rt-click on the Source Package label in

NetBeans’ Projects tab and click

New ->Java Package.

Setting up the package details

In this tutorial we will label the package exercises. Clicking Finish will

terminate this process.

Next we will create a simple class example and store it within our newly

created package. 

Create a new class

This process is very straight forward and involves a rt-click on the

appropriate exercises package, after which we choose Java Class. 

 Adding details for the welcome class

Set the class name to Welcome. The other details can be checked to verify that

all is as intended.

NetBeans Toolbars

 

The new class structure will be generated and at this point we need to edit the

code and add the necessary lines. Note that the first line of code is referring to

the package name in which this class will be stored.

The code is missing a main method (since we un-checked the checkbox

previously), which we add. Within this method we also need to add the line:

System.out.println(“Welcome to Java”); 

 

Notice that while adding this line of code NetBeans’ editor will be suggesting

stuff to make our lives easier. The next step is to either save, compile and

execute our program, or else execute it directly (which will automatically save

and compile). 

Running the welcome class

Any output from the executed program will be displayed in the terminal

window. In the above example the program executed correctly and the

intended message “Welcome to Java” displayed. If some compile time and

runtime errors were encountered, the appropriate exception message would

have also been displayed in this window.