NetBeans 6.5 - What's New?NetBeans 6.5 - What's New?

Sun released version 6.5 of NetBeans today, as part of its regular schedule of updates. The changes aren't focused in any particular area, but are instead spread over different languages and technologies, making it an appealing update to many classes of developers. 

This version includes enhanced support for PHP code editing and debugging, including PHP integration with MySQL. Also, there are updates to JavaScript development and debugging with integrated support for Firefox and IE and Ajax toolkits. In terms of web development, this release enhances support for REST, Spring, Hibernate, Glassfish V3 Prelude (see http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Glassfish-v3-Prelude-Released.html&Itemid=29), and even SaaS.

Other language enhancements include improved C++ code editing and remote debugging support, Ruby and Rails programming enhancements, Groovy and Grails enhancements, including support for using pure Groovy code. 

However, the big addition from Sun in this release is of tools and support for JavaFX projects. This includes a JavaFX editor, debugger, tools, visual elements, and code snippets to help with transformations, graphics effects, and other animations. Sun is firming up their JavaFX offering, and this release of NetBeans seems to prove that with its well-integrated JavaFX support.

Finally, other enhancements include a new debugger with support for multi-threaded debugging. This includes a new user interface, and a "Smart Step Into" command that allows you to control exactly which method you step into when there are multiple methods within one line of code.

Take a look at http://www.netbeans.org to download and learn more about the full set of changes, additions, and enhancements

Happy coding!

-EJB