The NetBeans(tm) team is proud to announce that the NetBeans Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) 4.0 Beta 1 is now available. The NetBeans
IDE provides a pure Java(tm) technology development environment for
Windows, Linux, the Solaris(tm) Operating System and Mac OS X.

Download the beta from

   http://www.netbeans.org/downloads/index.html

Key Features:

(see http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/40/index.html for more
information)

* Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 (J2SE) language feature support

J2SE 5.0 (Tiger) brings important new language updates: metadata,
generics, enumerated types and autoboxing of primitive types. NetBeans
IDE 4.0 supports these new language features in the editor, debugger,
refactoring, etc.

* Ant-based projects

A completely new project system based on Apache Ant, the de facto
standard for Java technology build tools, featuring:

- An open architecture, which third-party modules can extend to support
  current and future types of Java applications
- Project types for J2SE desktop, two-tier web applications (JSPs,
  servlets,...), and MIDP applications out of the box.

Beginning users don't have to know Ant to use the system, but the full
power of Ant is accessible to advanced Ant users.  These project types
come with built-in support for generating, developing and running unit
tests using JUnit, the de facto standard in Java code testing.

* Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) MIDP development support

- Support for the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) 2.0
- Support for the Connected, Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) 1.1
- Support for code obfuscation (commonly used to reduce application size)
- Easy integration of third party phone/device emulators
- Available as separate download NOW

This release simplifies coding with templates for MIDlet and MIDlet
suites.  It solves device fragmentation problems by enabling you to edit
and compile custom configurations for each device, without requiring
separate source files for each device.

See http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/mobility.html for more information.

* Java refactoring

Refactoring allows developers to make sweeping changes to their code
without affecting functionality. The refactoring in NetBeans IDE 4.0
provides features such as renames (class/method/field), move class,
rename package, change method parameters, encapsulate field and find
references.

* Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) development support for
NetBeans IDE 4.x (Early Access available in October)

The NetBeans team will release a J2EE module collection as a separate
download for NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta 2 that will extend the NetBeans IDE
Web-Tier development capabilities and will allow EJB(tm) and Web
Services development.

Features include:

- Create EJB Modules and EJB Session Beans
- Synchronize Deployment Descriptor files
- New Web Service wizard to create Web Services artifacts
- New J2EE Application project type wizard, that allows the developer to
 define a J2EE Application (a set of Web Applications and EJB Modules)
- Deployment and execution target to Sun Java System Application Server
 Platform Edition 8.1 Beta and Tomcat 5

* Performance Profiler (coming soon)

NetBeans is adding a CPU and memory performance profiler to its long
list of features. The Profiler is based on the JFluid research project
that has been in development at SunLabs for the last two years and adds
tight integration into NetBeans IDE and an improved user interface.

Features include:

- Memory profiling and leak detection
- CPU performance profiling
- Low-overhead profiling
- Task-based profiling
- Tight integration into the IDE workflow
- Attach to currently running JVM and do on-the-fly configuration changes

The initial Early Access release is available NOW as a separate module
collection download for NetBeans IDE 3.6.  The beta version will be
available as an additional download for the production version of
NetBeans IDE 4.0 in December.

See http://profiler.netbeans.org for more information.