I've switched IDEs! (pretty sure)

[zingbat]

If theres something that both these IDEs have in common is that both visual editors used to create guis are butt hugly  ineficient (generate hugly java code) and very incomplete.

For this reason i allways create my interfaces with RelativeLayout. Its as simple as editing a xml file then tell your RelativeLayout instance to use it and start adding components to it. This alone will replace hundreds of java lines into a simple page of java sourcecode.

[Bombadil]

The profile stuff sounds promising.

Yes indeed. I'm going to download Mustang just for it (thanks Herkules for the hints).

Then I see that you CAN'T use the SpringLayout... you remember the SpringLayout? It's the layout that was specifically designed to work well with layout tools.

Yes, that's strange. So far I didn't need the SpringLayout, but you're right.
Netbeans' Tim Boudreau mentioned some promising form editor enhancements in the  Javalobby forum.
I'm sure we'll be able to use these soon in some quality beta of the v4.2 or such. I've found the Netbeans' quality betas to be very usable. More stable than for example JBuilder 2005 production release.

Then I noticed something in the open project dialog,  a checkbox to "load dependent projects"  I thought hey, that's good, I have a few projects I would like to load (like my Eclipse workspace).  Well it turns out there is no way to add dependent projects to your main project... perhaps it's because I used "free-form" projects base on an existing ant script? Sigh...

Can't comment on the "auto load dependent project" feature; so far I've just added the needed Netbeans projects manually to my standard "Java application" project and everything worked fine the very first time.

[swpalmer]

If theres something that both these IDEs have in common is that both visual editors used to create guis are butt hugly  ineficient (generate hugly java code) and very incomplete.

I think as far as GUI layout tools go, Bob shows a lot of promise.

The thing that puts me off storing my UI classes in XML is that they can't be included in the IDE's refactoring operations without a lot of manual cleanup.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[zingbat]

It looks like a good idea but still too experimental and undocumented to my taste.