Netbeans is an open source, full-featured Java integrated development environment (IDE). This book provides an overview regarding the use of many of the features of the IDE. It also includes descriptions and examples of developing modules to extend the IDE.

The first chapter describes how to obtain, build, and install Netbeans. This information is all rather intuitive, and is of little interest to any experienced software developer.

The next chapter deals with the fundamental concepts of the Netbeans IDE including workspaces, the explorer, and managing projects. For a Netbeans beginner, this is probably the most useful chapter of the book. Concepts such as badges and workspaces can be a bit confusing to a beginner, and setting the IDE’s classpath can be a mystery to a new user. This chapter does an excellent job explaining these concepts.

Chapter 3 provides a minimal overview of the IDE’s source editor, though it provides little more than a few screen shots and descriptions regarding how to customize a few of the editor’s features. Chapter 4 provides an overview of the features of the debugger as well as a nice description of breakpoint types.

Chapter 5 describes the compilation and execution services. This chapter is particularly useful for developers who use Apache Ant for building their projects. I’ve often had difficulty getting the Ant integration features of other IDEs to work the way I’ve wanted. This chapter provides a thorough explanation for configuring the Ant plug-in.

Chapter 7 provides a brief overview of customizing the IDE. Chapter 8 describes source control integration with Netbeans, focusing primarily on Concurrent Versions System (CVS) integration, although it could have used more details on configuring a generic version control system.

Chapter 8 provides an overview of the graphical user interface (GUI) building features of the IDE. It provides an overview of how to customize the GridBagLayout, and how to add event handlers, but fails to get into any real detail on creating complex GUI applications.

Chapter 9 explains Javabeans development, chapter 10 explains Javadoc, and chapter 11 explains Extensible Markup Language (XML) development in Netbeans.

The rest of the book deals exclusively with extending the IDE. Chapter 14 explains the design philosophy of Netbeans. Chapter 15 provides an extensive explanation of the Netbeans open application program interfaces (APIs) and how they interact with the system. This chapter is the most useful chapter for developers interested in learning about creating Netbeans modules. Chapter 16 is nothing more than a demonstration of the new module wizard, and chapter 17 explains some of the internals of the IDE.

Chapters 18 through 25 describe extending the API using a set of examples. These chapters are full of code samples and screen shots. The last two chapters of the book explain how to package modules, and how to package a Netbeans distribution.

This book contains a great deal of content. Two-thirds of the book is dedicated to customizing the Netbeans IDE. The preface indicates the authors assume the reader is a Netbeans beginner. Much of the IDE internals and customization, however, would not be useful to a Netbeans beginner.

I did find this book to be a good introduction to Netbeans. Nevertheless, it did not fulfill its billing as “the definitive guide.” I found the chapters that dealt with using the IDE were too detailed on setup and configuration of environment, yet too high-level when it came to describing actual development tasks. I am not a Netbeans module developer. However, I enjoyed some of the chapters on creating Netbeans modules. The sample chapters seemed to drag on, and the large amount of code samples and screen shots made them difficult to read. These chapters could have been more concise, and the details would have been better left as a downloadable addendum.

If you are looking for a must-have, all-inclusive Netbeans reference, this is not the book. However, this is a good book for a developer looking for an introduction to Netbeans. It will familiarize the developer with the Netbeans philosophy and serve as a good supplement to the online documentation.