Coming Up for Air

14 NetBeans Web Development Tips in 7 Minutes

Thursday, May 29, 2014 |

Recently, Geertjan Wielenga, Principal Product Manager in the Oracle Developer Tools group, posted a video on his blog showing "14 NetBeans Web Development Tips in 7 Minutes", which showed off several nice tips for the IDE (#1 and #5 are my favorites). If you’re like me, sometimes you don’t have (or don’t want to make) time to watch a video, so I thought I’d make a table of contents for the video, with links to relevant portion of it for those that would like to read the list and watch only the parts that interest them.

Tip Video Link

1

You can quickly drag and drop resources from the Projects window into HTML files

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2

You can use predefined code templates to generate chunks of HTML. Press TAB to expand the template

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which can be easily configured and you can create new ones.

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3

"scr" expands to "script", which has a hidden feature: code completion when you press Ctrl-Space.

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4

Hold down the CTRL key and the selected references is a hyperlink that can be clicked to open the file.

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5

Select the content of a tag and press CTRL-R, if you want to change both sides of the tag at once.

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6

Ctrl-Shift-Up/Down and Alt-Shift-Up/Down copy/move lines up and down.

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7

Splitting a document window is easy…​

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…​and you can also drag a document to split the editor area.

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8

Use the Options window to configure the editors for all the languages you use.

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9

You can change the tab position, e.g, make all the tabs in the editor be displayed in the bottom of the editor.

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10

The Terminal Window can be very useful. No need to switch of NetBeans to the command line anymore.

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11

Each HTML5 project integrates with the standard HTML5 technologies, e.g., SASS, Cordova, Karma, etc.

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12

Block selection lets you change code across multiple lines.

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13

Press Ctrl-Shift-Enter to create a "notepad look and feel", i.e., a very simplified version of the IDE, without toolbars, etc.

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14

Want to see the spaces and tabs? That can be done too.

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If you have time, of course, watch the whole thing. If you’d just like to see the list of tips, there you have it. :)

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    About

    My name is Jason Lee. I am a software developer living in the middle of Oklahoma. I’ve been a professional developer since 1997, using a variety of languages, including Java, Javascript, PHP, Python, Delphi, and even a bit of C#. I currently work for Red Hat on the WildFly/EAP team, where, among other things, I maintain integrations for some MicroProfile specs, OpenTelemetry, Micrometer, Jakarta Faces, and Bean Validation. (Full resume here. LinkedIn profile)

    I am the president of the Oklahoma City JUG, and an occasional speaker at the JUG and a variety of technical conferences.

    On the personal side, I’m active in my church, and enjoy bass guitar, running, fishing, and a variety of martial arts. I’m also married to a beautiful woman, and have two boys, who, thankfully, look like their mother.

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