Beginning

NetCAT 6.5 began on 15th July, I got an unexpected amount of mails, many people (incl. of me) were shocked to recieve such amount of mails. Many newbie’s are taking part this time, even I’m participating for the 1st time!

It wasn’t a problem for the experienced NetCATian’s who are actually termed as NetCAT Veterans.

What I missed…

Jiri Kovalsky, NetCAT Coordinator had given the NetCAT Team, 1st task for the week, and it was a survey, to be taken by us. However, due to some unavoidable circumstances I couldn’t fill it up. Any issues, not at all I lost a chance to gain 5 points! Anyways, more tasks to follow soon and I would hopefully complete those…

What I did…

Answered a lot of mails, queried as well! It was a breath-taking first 2-3 days! Now, I have filtered mails (on my mail account), that I don’t want to read OR irrelevant to me, with respect to this program. Also, my primary focus is on PHP and Documentation (you know why ;)). Soon, I will review docs as well, as there are no at present…

Bugs Filed-
Filed 5 bugs, 2 were resolved for duplicacy However, 1 of the other 3, getting approved to be fixed for the next Milestone, probably Beta version (not sure, though).

Others-
Wrote an article on my other blog- Milestone OR Daily Builds!

New Features

This section would list the features I saw during the past 1 week-

• Milestone 1 -
  I am not using it anymore, click it for more info about the features.
• NetBeans Platform-
  I came across 1 feature, which I had also mentioned in my Milestone blog entry, that it was a bug.
• Actually, its not… I’m talking about “Install/Reload in Target Platform”. Its an enhancement that has been done for removing redundancy.
• When you create a Module, and for a preview, you click on the above Menu Item for result. Though, from now on you would see it disabled, and Module will install in Target Platform, only by F6!
• When the Module is running, see the Menu Item again, now its enabled for Reload. Cool, isn’t it?

NetBeans Builds…

• Milestones- Milestone 1
• Daily Builds- Dev Build 200807101204, Dev Build 200807170007

DISCLAIMER
This NetCAT Weekly Report #1, is my personal report on what I experienced during a particular week.
Its not related in any respect with NetCAT organisers.

Howdy,

So, we begin, yes I am also now a member of NetCAT Team, more specifically for 6.5 Release!

Day One- Amazing start, great rush of mails, need to keep an hourly check to ease filtering. So many issues being filed, few enhancement requests, many new members (including me).

Maybe I am just a bit over excited, as its my first day and I guess, experienced NetCAT members would have a better idea, whether its good/bad start…

NetCAT 6.5 Coordinator- He’s the Technical Community Manager, NBIG Coordinator (I guess), and what not…..He’s Jiri (Jirka) Kovalsky. He’s managing this program again.

I myself posted 2 bugs, one of them turning out to be duplicate More information in my weekly reports. I just downloaded Dev Build (10th July), it has better splash screen than Milestone 1, and some cool features will post about them soon.

By the way, this is the beginning of a new era of blog series, it would be a weekly series, as I will write a report on my experience over here!

sTay Tuned for More…

Hey,

The wait is over, as NetBeans IDE 6.5 Milestone 1, is available for download! Yes, a new version is out, and I am really excited to see new features! Before I go any further, I must tell you what I missed in NetBeans 6.0, 6.1 IDE-

1. Action Wizard with no scrollbar, was really troublesome, as I had to change my system resolution to 1024 by 768, everytime I wanted to use this Wizard!
2. Proper Language Integration Framework, there have been a lot of discussion on the mailing lists, on having a unified language integration framework (I am still exploring Generic Language Framework).

Few months back, I have started exploring the NetBeans Platform for RCP and I have recently contributed a lot of documentation on XML Layer! So, the above points are related to NetBeans Platform, as I haven’t used the IDE for any other type of projects for so long!

Also, I missed out on NetCAT 6.0 and CA Survey 6.1! I was new to the community when NetCAT happened, and at the time of Survey, I was having exams! Anyways, I am enjoying dealing with RCP on a daily basis, and hope to make some cool features for the IDE, some day!

What I saw today?

General Changes

The Action Wizard has got a scrollbar, what a relief! Phew… I can feel it, its such an important enhancement, will save a lot of time. Though, I was not able to Install/Reload in Target Platform, it was disabled don’t know why, might be a bug! Plugin Manager had so many new plugins available, support for Scala, Groovy is also there! Many modules from contrib were present as well.

New font colors, for Java source files, XML Layer! I guess the font has changed as well.
FONT resembles the ONE used in Ubuntu!

Hey, I also saw Quick Search Toolbar, Geertjan had blogged about it recently, and there exists Dzone Articles as well. Though, it doesn’t seem to work in the Milestone 1, however expect all these features and many more listed on NetBeans.org, to be available in NB 6.5 IDE Beta Version!

Java Editor and GUI Matisse Builder

Better parsing; control over “Qualified Names of Classes“; enhanced visiblity of code; changes in Action- “Encapsulate Fields…”, more options now available such as Insert Point, Sort By, Javadoc…

Insert Point
Lets you insert the getter/setter’s OR both, above/below any existing method in code, by selecting an option from DropDown list.

Sort By
Lets you sort the getter/setter’s OR both, to be generated in a specific order, by selecting an option from its DropDown list.

Javadoc
Lets you create Javadoc for your getter/setter’s OR both, by selecting following options from DropDown list -

1. Create default comments
2. Copy from field
3. None

Refer this tips and Tricks, apply those steps in this Milestone, you would see a change. I will update that trick for this Milestone soon!

Suggestions

I would suggest you all to have a look and feel of the IDE, make some sample applications, test, review and give feedback! You may do it more efficiently by participating in NetCAT 6.5! I have applied and waiting for the selection results.

sTay Tuned for More Reviews…

Hello all,

I would like to bring to your notice, that the results are out for Sun Student Views and Reviews blogging contest [1], which required the participants to review NetBeans 6.1 FCS and OpenSolaris 2008.05!

We have few winners[2] from NetBeans Community Docs Contributors as well. Lets congratulate, Jay Mahadeokar and Ritwik Goshal, as they have done some fabulous contributions in recent past. Jay and I, finished runner-up’s, as Ritwik won the Grand Prize in General Students category!

[1] http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/reviews/studentzone/contest.jsp
[2] http://blogs.sun.com/students/entry/opensolaris_and_netbeans_student_reviews

Woohooo

Hey,

Its been a long time, since I wrote any Tricks, even in my latest interview I was asked, whether I am going to continue contributing OR not! Its been over a month, since I wrote my last trick, that was submitted for Student Views and Reviews - blogging contest.

Results have been postponed by a week!

Recently, I came across something special, that you could do with XML Layer, I am taking Module Writing seriously, nowadays! So, I present to you a blog series, with a mix of tipsAndTricks, Tutorials, Articles!

Its based on the exploration I did on registering Actions in XML Layer. There are two types;

1. Always Enabled (@see CallableSystemAction)
2. Conditionally Enabled (@see CookieAction)

I don’t know how many posts this series would last for. Don’t worry, the solution to your problems is here! Just wait and watch…

sTay Tuned…