When you start the IDE for the first time, several things happen simultaneously.
The IDE is comprised of many parts that work together to help you develop your applications. The following gives a quick overview of those parts you will most likely use during your application development.
In the main window, you can find the menu bar, several toolbars, and the workspace tabs. The workspace tabs include Editing, GUI Editing, and Debugging. From the menus, you have access to all the top-level windows in the IDE, such as the Source Editor, the Form Editor, the Properties window, the Debugger window, and the Options window.
The Help menu gives you access to such things as the online help and the Java Developer Connection site (under Bookmarks).The Java Developer Connection provides information on updates and pointers to Java resources. From the Help menu, you can choose Contact the NetBeans Team to send questions or comments about the IDE to the development team.
You can activate the most commonly called commands in the IDE from the main menu bar and the various toolbars in the main window. Each toolbar provides a group of related commands. At the left side of each toolbar is a drag area that you can use to reposition the toolbar.
Some toolbars exist outside of the main window. For example, the Component Palette is a toolbar in the Form Editor window. The Component Palette includes numerous tabs for various AWT, Swing, and JavaBeans components, along with a selection of layout managers and border.
A workspace is a set of windows that are related to the performance of a particular task. From the main window, you can open the default workspaces: editing, GUI editing, and debugging. When the IDE is first started, the editing workspace is displayed. The workspaces can be customized to fit your needs. You can add you own workspace, delete workspaces, remove or rename existing workspaces, and change which windows are contained in a workspace.
The space to the right of the workspace tab is the IDE's status bar, where the status of running commands is displayed. For example, information appears in the status bar when you compile applications, debug applications, or run version control commands.
The Explorer appears on the left hand side of the IDE and provides a starting point for your work in the IDE. It is a tabbed pane that includes the Filesystems, Project, and Runtime tabs. The Explorer displays a tree of nodes that represent directories and objects that comprise the mounted filesystems in the IDE.
The properties of most object and object elements that are represented by nodes in the Explorer can be viewed in a Properties window. By default, the Properties window opens in the Editing workspace and appears below the Explorer. The names and values of the properties of a selected node in the Explorer are displayed in the Properties window. If you are working in the Source Editor, the properties of the code currently in focus are displayed in the Properties window.
The Source Editor is a full-featured text editor that is integrated with the Form Editor, Explorer, compiler, and debugger. The Source Editor is automatically opened when a new and editable object is created from the available templates in the IDE. It can also be opened by double-clicking the node of an editable object in the Explorer.
The Build menu contains commands for compiling applications. You can choose to compile all the files in the program or only those files that are new or have changed since the last compile. You can also use the most common compiling actions by using the commands in the Build toolbar or by using the keyboard equivalents. When you compile, the Output window appears at the bottom of the IDE and displays the status of the compilation.
The Debug menu in the main window gives you access to the different debug functionalities available in the IDE. You can set breakpoints and watches, step through code, examine and modify variables, examine classes and the callstack, follow threads, and run multiple sessions. You can also use the Debug toolbar or keyboard equivalents to perform the most common debugging actions. When you start a debugging session, the debugging workspace is loaded and, by default, the Debugger window, the Output window, and the Source Editor are displayed.
The Form Editor is a visual tool for creating and editing Java GUI code. The Form Editor window consists of the Component Inspector, the Component Palette, and the Form Designer panes. GUI items, such as panels, scrollbars, and layout managers, are available in the Component Palette. They can be added to the Form Designer pane to help you quickly develop and visually examine a GUI. The Java source code to implement your GUI is automatically generated and updated via the Source Editor, and can be modified as needed.
Many of the commands you need when working in the IDE are also available via contextual menus. A menu appears when you right-click in the Source Editor, Form Editor, views in the Debugger window, or on a selection in the Explorer. The menu lists commands pertaining only to the current screen region or selection.