an uncomplicated java IDE

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David Marrs - 31 Jan 2005 03:24 GMT

Dear all,

I've been getting into Java recently and I'd like to know if anybody can
recommend a lightweight IDE that I can use alongside a conventional text
editor to handle GUI or other API tasks.

I've downloaded the free version of JBuilder from Borland's website, but
I got lost in record time. I really don't need an entire project
manager, nor do I want one. The bulk of programming is something I like
to do manually. It would be nice, however, to use a designer for
quickly building, say, a window app and then pasting the code directly
into vim. I seem to remember something like this being available for
gtk+ users in Linux. Does a similar app exist for Java programmers?

Thanks for any help,

David

PS. I just posted this to the comp.lang.java newsgroup before suddenly
realising that there was a separate newsgroup for gui discussion.
Apologies for posting twice.

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Andrew Thompson - 31 Jan 2005 09:35 GMT

> I've been getting into Java recently and I'd like to know if anybody can
> recommend a lightweight IDE that I can use alongside a conventional text
> editor to handle GUI

<as many opinions as their are responders>
You probably will not find a 'good' D'n'D GUI designer for Java,
let alone a light weight one.

The complexity of designing x-plat screens requires some
subtle and powerful layout managers that are not well suited
to anything more than hand coding.
</as many opinions as their are responders>

>..or other API tasks.

Such as what? Compiling, launching? Or Compiling, launching,
jarring, signing, ANT, easy packaging/deployment of web-apps ..?

The former, I would recommend TextPad. The latter, and you are
back to the 'heavy weight' IDE's, the big three being JBuilder,
Eclipse and Netbeans.

I suspect you will not like the speed of Netbeans, and Eclipse*
is every bit as powerful (and complex) as both JBuilder and Netbeans.

* Depending on plug-ins.

> I've downloaded the free version of JBuilder from Borland's website, but
> I got lost in record time.

It helps to have a thorough understanding of the Java SDK tools that
you are working with, then the IDE's become a little less mysterious.
....

> Does a similar app exist for Java programmers?

If you hear of it, please let me know.

> PS. I just posted this to the comp.lang.java newsgroup before suddenly
> realising that there was a separate newsgroup for gui discussion.
> Apologies for posting twice.

Thank you for having the sense to mention, and the manners to
apologise for, the double posting.

Here is a quick summary of the major Java groups.
<http://www.physci.org/codes/javafaq.jsp#groups>

HTH

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Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
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Andrey Kuznetsov - 31 Jan 2005 10:37 GMT

> The former, I would recommend TextPad. The latter, and you are
> back to the 'heavy weight' IDE's, the big three being JBuilder,
> Eclipse and Netbeans.

additionaly I can recommend Intellij IDEA (a bit expensive)
However, TextPad is very good for beginner.

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Andrey Kuznetsov
http://uio.dev.java.net Unified I/O for Java
http://reader.imagero.com Java image reader
http://jgui.imagero.com Java GUI components and utilities

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David Marrs - 31 Jan 2005 18:38 GMT

Thanks for the replies. :)

I'll carry on using the SDK and vim for now. Perhaps one day in the
very distant future I'll be proficient enough to get my head around an
IDE, although I'm not sure that I'll ever like them. I've downloaded
textpad and I'll give it a try some time, though to tell you the truth,
I've become inexplicably attached to vim..!? (At last, I'm beginning to
understand the rationale behind all those vim vs. emacs arguments!)

For sure, learning the API is going to be the biggest struggle with
Java. The documentation is slowly revealing its strange nomenclature to
me, but I can see it's going to take a good deal of experience to get
comfortable with it. I have to say, the online help at Sun is very good
and I'm appreciating it a lot. Thanks for the link to the faq: I found
it very useful.

Regards,

David

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Hal Rosser - 02 Feb 2005 03:24 GMT

For a minimal IDE - try JGrasp - its free - and uncomplicated

> Thanks for the replies. :)
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
> David

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Andrew Thompson - 02 Feb 2005 09:33 GMT

> I've downloaded
> textpad and I'll give it a try some time, though to tell you the truth,
> I've become inexplicably attached to vim..!?

I doubt that an experienced vim user would get much value from TextPad.
Going merely from what I have heard, vim sounds like it is much
more powerful in some ways.

Though TextPad will compile/launch (does vim?), I find the
'compile launch from editor' feature handy for 'quick throw
away things', but usually revert to a more complex
compile/launch strategy for most projects.

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Andrew Reilly - 02 Feb 2005 12:40 GMT

> Though TextPad will compile/launch (does vim?),

It will if you've built a Makefile for your project, and that contains a
"test:" target as the default.

Vim won't help you with GUI layout, though.

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Andrew

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Andrew Thompson - 04 Feb 2005 09:49 GMT

>> Though TextPad will compile/launch (does vim?),
>
> It will if you've built a Makefile for your project, and that contains a
> "test:" target as the default.
>
> Vim won't help you with GUI layout, though.

<whispers>
..and though it got lost in the trimming, neither will TextPad. ;-)
</whispers>

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dar7yl - 02 Feb 2005 07:13 GMT

> Dear all,
>
> I've been getting into Java recently and I'd like to know if anybody can
> recommend a lightweight IDE that I can use alongside a conventional text
> editor to handle GUI or other API tasks.

Look at JCreator ( http://www.jcreator.com ).

For quick-and-dirty text editing, I use PFE, which unfortunately isn't
available anymore.
When all else fails, there is always notepad:)

regards,
Dar7yl

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an uncomplicated java IDE

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