NetBeans 7.1 has just been released. It is interesting how NetBeans continues to evolve – after many doubts were raised with regard to its future after the Oracle-Sun acquisition. Oracle maintains two IDEs – each with its own objectives. JDeveloper to support Fusion Middleware development, NetBeans to propel the Java platform and its associates (Groovy/Grails, Scala) with even more focus on standards and open source. NetBeans also support PHP and C++ code development – though I have no personal experience worth mentioning in these areas.

NetBeans 7.1 is not a major overhaul – it is a continuation of the NetBeans IDE. However, it does add one major new area of functionality: JavaFX 2.0 support in addition to a number of valuable smaller enhancements. This article briefly touches upon a number of these enhancements – the one that most appealed to me. Download NetBeans 7.1 from http://netbeans.org/downloads/index.html.

An interesting webcast (10 minutes) about the 7.1 release can be found here: http://netbeans.org/kb/docs/ide/overview-screencast.html.

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