NetBeans IDE 5.0 Beta and Mobility Pack 5.0 Beta
NetBeans have released 5.0 Beta versions from the IDE and the Mobility Pack. The interesting new feature in the IDE is the Matisse form editor that even surpasses the Microsoft Visual Studio’s GUI editors in some areas.
What’s new in Mobility Pack 5.0:
- Improved Wireless Connection Bridge - easily access web services and other server-side data from MIDlets via servlets. The bridge now supports complex types.
- Support for Java ME Web Services (JSR 172) - Write applications that access web services directly from your phone.
- New custom components in the Visual Mobile Designer - New components enable you to add tables, wait screens, and splash screens to your user interface.
- Improved preprocessor support for device fragmentation - Develop code for any number of devices with a single code base. You can also import projects from Antenna and J2MEPolish without losing your preprocessor coding.
- Edit generated code - Guarded blocks are now more flexible, enabling you to customize code generated by the Visual Mobile Designer.
- Improved emulator support - You can now easily add custom emulators to the IDE.
As you can see from the screenshot that I have already tested the new beta release. New custom components are good addition since I have created my own splash screen for every application that I have made. Now I’m able to use only the Visual Mobile Designer to design my application’s flow and screens. This reduces the testing time and produces more stable applications.