While I normally keep my distance with new releases when it comes to servers
and the likes I just couldn't help giving the latest netbeans a try. I started
with reading the 'whats new' page, then grabbed all but the Mac versions and
right now I gave it a try on both Windows and Linux. Because a list of 'new
features' doesn't tell you very much I'm dumping a quick preview of the IDE, I
hope no one minds. If so then I guess I'll hear soon enough ;-)

Something which is immediatly noticable when using the latest version is the
logo. Where the previous version clearly displayed the "Netbeans square" this
one is a little more abstract, personally I liked the previous one better. An
experience which is quickly cast aside when you see the new IDE; when starting
it up for the first time it will detect any previous settings (I only tested
with 4.1) and ask you if you'd like to implement them. I tried this on Linux
but I must say that it works decently well. Even the manually added javahelp
library was easily converted into my 5.0 settings. The only thing which I
spotted missing were the extra server environments I added. Apart from the
embedded Tomcat I also used the Sun Application Server; personal, enterprise
and the one bundled in the J2EE release. These weren't picked up, which
resulted in an error when opening up a few projects.

But that experience is well made up once you click the tools menu in order to
fix this. You'll immediatly notice the more professional layout of the
configurable options. On 4.1 you'd goto tools -> options and "source creation
and management" if you'd want to change some of the templates. On 5.0 you goto
the "template manager". Basicly its the same functionality made easier, I have
to say that I consider this new approach a lot better and easier to use.

But if you start wondering about the settings and check those out you'll be
immediatly greeted with a new way to configure netbeans. The options panel is
now a little easier if you're only after the basic options. You have quick
control over basic options like color, keymap (shortcuts) and other settings.
If you wish to do more you can click on the "advanced options" after which
you're taken to the old option screen. Something which could be annoying is the
fact that you cannot tell netbeans to allways use the advanced option panel.
Instead you always need to go through the basic options (unless I missed an
option) which I considered rather annoying. I know that normally you won't need
this option all that much, but still...  If you do need it its not uncommon
that you'll need it a lot for the moment, which is also the moment when things
start to become annoying if you need to click double all the time, at least I
think so.

Another option which you'll soon notice is the "module manager". I immediatly
take liking to this one too since it allows you to load and unload several
modules on the fly (even though you're adviced to restart the IDE after doing
so sometimes).

When looking at the editor itself you also see that the developers have
adressed certain nuissances from the past. For example; code collapsing can be
very easy if you're only working on a few methods. IMO this goes double for
Java due to the "modulair setup" it can have. Unfortunatly the previous version
would always expand all your code once you compiled and ran the program. The
current version will remember your "collapse settings", even between trial
runs. Another nice, though cosmetic, change is the way the panels are handled.
You can now customize them instead of merely adding / removing certain panels.

However, not all is perfect. When trying to add "package-info.java" to your
repository in order to get a Javadoc comment for your package you'll still be
greeted with the error that this isn't possible due to an invalid name. So I
guess you're still left with adding a 'package.html' to your source files if
you want to describe the whole package. By the way; this setting is also well
picked up when converting your previous setting, including the specific
exceptions you set in your project settings. All in all I think its safe to say
that netbeans has had a nice upgrade with some new and interesting options when
it comes to the common settings.

However, one point really bugged me: the new version control support. I'm using
CVS and the new netbeans tells us about a rewritten support for it but
unfortunatly it seems that it won't detect already checked out files. On
Windows I only had the option "check out" available, on Linux it showed me more
CVS options but whenever I tried one it failed due to ssh errors. Something
which doesn't make sense to me since my environment variables point to rsh
these days. My guess is that netbeans' version control can't hande this, and so
far I haven't found any options to change this behaviour.

This annoyance is quickly solved due to the modular build of netbeans. If you
don't like this cvs support you can easily resort to the add-on module which
gives you the old version control back. But even here you have some very
annoying change in behaviour: On 4.1 the tabs shows you a small icon denoting
if the file was up to date, changed, modified, etc. The other windows (project
/ versioning) would show you the extra details like release number and a short
description.

Unfortunatly they linked this behaviour in the latest version with the tabs. As
soon as you have 4 class files open (or, in my case 3 class files + the html
package description) while cvs descriptions are turned on you won't be able to
access all the files directly anymore. All your tabs will be too wide and as
such you'll need to use the arrow button to pane through your files. This was
tested at full screen (maximized) at 1024x768.

And here comes another problem...  You can turn this behaviour off in the
advanced option pane ("File status annotation display") for example by setting
this to "modified status annotation". Now your tabs will behave like they did
in 4.1 but unfortunatly this will also get rid of the descriptions in your
projects panel and whats even worse: the -versioning- panel as well!  So either
you see version information mentioned everywhere or you won't see it anywhere.

Now, maybe I'm putting my priorities in the wrong place but I consider this to
be a major flaw with the new version. I want to be able to control 6 class
files through tabs directly without need to scroll around while also being able
to see the cvs release somewhere. I don't care if this is the project panel
(easy) or the version panel (not that easy since you'll need to click some
more). But this change of behavior is something I can't work with.

So... rounding up..  They made some interesting changes to netbeans and its
obvious that they really looked at functionality (when looking at the split off
module and template manager). However, because I'm utilizing CVS version
control quite heavily I don't like the new version all that well. Either the
tabs are too wide (with version information) or you don't see anything at all.

My impression with the latest version is that anyone who doesn't use version
control or isn't heavily relying on the tabs is bound to like it due to the
overal positive changes. Not to forget people who don't mind being able to only
access 3 files directly at a time with version control turned on.

But for me...  I'll stick to 4.1 for the time being.