Building Next Generation Web Applications using the new NetBeans Visual Web Pack

Sun has announced the general availability of the NetBeans Visual Web Pack. It comes with a rich visual design-time environment and support for Ajax-enabled JavaServer Faces components.

It allows developers to visually and easily develop standards-based web
applications and includes drag-and-drop binding to several data
services and has a Data Provider API that allows a developer to bind to
any data source.

The NetBeans Visual Web Pack is derived from Sun Java Studio Creator IDE and is supported across many common platforms, including Solaris 10 Operating System, GNU/Linux, Mac OS and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

The key features of the web pack are –

* Support for AJAX-Enabled JavaServer Faces components
* Supported standards: Web Archive (WAR), Java System Application Server, JBoss, BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, Tomcat, and others.
* Visual WYSIWYG JavaServer Faces page design
* Visual database query editor
* Industry leading support for JavaServer Faces components
* Drag-and-drop binding to data services
* Page Navigator to define user-flow through your application
* Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) editor
* Comprehensive library of JavaServer Faces components such as Table, Calendar, Tree, Tab Set, File Upload.

“The NetBeans Packs demonstrate our support and commitment to the developer communities to deliver cutting edge technologies,” said Jeet Kaul, vice president, developer products and programs, Sun. “The Packs are a great example of how NetBeans is providing a complete set of tools built on the innovative NetBeans IDE and with more than 100 listed partners and more than 11 million downloads, NetBeans continues to change the landscape of software development.”

The NetBeans Visual Web Pack installer is just under 26MBs. You must have NetBeans 5.5 and JDK 5 update 6 or higher installed before you can install the NetBeans Visual Web Pack. The Web Pack is one of several NetBeans addons like the Mobility Pack, Enterprise Pack, Profiler, etc. You can find the details of all addons at the NetBeans products page. Do have a look at the NetBeans Visual Web Pack FAQ to get some answers before you decide to try and use the Web Pack.

Related
Eclipse vs NetBeans
Using Antenna with Netbeans
NetBeans wants Eclipse developers to switch
Scripting Jython and Groovy using Coyote with NetBeans
NetBeans was the early bird but has Eclipse caught the worm
Eclipse is focused on closing in on Visual Studio