Apache NetBeans 12.1, some improvements for C / C ++, Java and PHP

In the next article we are going to take a look at Apache NetBeans 12.1. Apache Software Foundation has released the new version of its integrated development environment. In the following lines we are going to see some of the news, and we will also see how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04.

First of all, it is necessary to explain that Netbeans is a free, integrated development environment. It has been created mainly for the Java programming language, and it also has a significant number of modules to extend it and make it more complete. NetBeans is a very successful open source project, with a large user base and an ever-growing community.

For those who are not familiar with this IDE, you should know that offers support for Java SE, Java EE, PHP, JavaScript, and Groovy programming languages. In addition to its features, there is an Ant-based design system, version control, and refactoring.

In this new version, Apache Software Foundation Organization released the new version of the integrated development environment, in which some support improvements have been added for C / C ++, Java, PHP and HTML.

What's new in Apache NetBeans 12.1

This new version of the IDE It does not include important changes, but it does include improvements in some aspects of the programming languages that admits. Among them we can find:

• This new version released adds limited support for C / C ++ languages, which still lags behind previously released C / C ++ development plugins for NetBeans 8.2.
• For C / C ++ development, support is provided for the simplest projects. This allows compiling and running commands, syntax highlighting with TextMate grammars, and debugging with gdb.
• La code completion and other editing functions were implemented by accessing the language server protocol (CCLS) LSP, which the user must run independently.
• Another added change was the platform support Jakarta EE 8, which replaced Java EE (Java Platform, Enterprise Edition).
• In NetBeans 12.1, NetBeans built-in Java compiler nb-javac (modified by javac) was translated to use Java 14.

• For Java SE, support for the Gradle build system is enabled.
• For PHP new actions have been added to the Composer menu to update the autoloader and run scripts. In the debugger, instead of 0 and 1 in the Boolean values ​​of the variables, they are shown as false and true. It also includes improved tools for code analysis.
• For HTML, the markup validator component has been updated (validator.jar). Includes support for completing patterns. Added support for code completion and syntax highlighting for constructs.
• Formatting options for 'Tabs and indents' have been proposed in CSS to control indentation and the use of tabs or spaces.
• At the beginning, detect the JDK installed on Gnu / Linux and macOS using the toolkit sdkman.

For more information on this version of NetBeans, users can consult the release note.

Install NetBeans 12.1

If you want to use this new version of NetBeans, it must be said that at least we must have at least Java version 8 of Oracle u OpenJDK v8 installed on our system and Apache Ant 1.10 or higher.

How to snap

For install Netbeans version 12.1 as snap pack on our Ubuntu system, we will have to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and use the following installation command:

sudo snap install netbeans --classic

After the installation, we can launch Apache Netbeans using the program launcher that we will find in our system:

uninstall

For uninstall Netbans 12.1 snap package from our system we can use the command:

sudo snap remove netbeans

With installer

Another way to install this program on our computer will be using the installer we can download from website of the project. To get this package we will also have the possibility of using the wget tool from the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) as follows:

wget -c https://downloads.apache.org/netbeans/netbeans/12.1/Apache-NetBeans-12.1-bin-linux-x64.sh

Once the download is finished, we will use the following command to give execute permissions to the downloaded file:

sudo chmod +x Apache-NetBeans-12.0-bin-linux-x64.sh

Now we can run the file with the command:

./Apache-NetBeans-12.0-bin-linux-x64.sh

This command will start the graphical Netbeans installer.

uninstall

We can remove this tool from our team executing in the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) the command:

./$HOME/netbeans-12.1/uninstall.sh

Like Flatpak

If we want to install this IDE as a package Flatpak, It must be said that today the version to be installed will be 12, we will not have more than enable this technology on Ubuntu 20.04.

When we can install this type of package in our system, in a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) we can launch Netbeans 12.0 installation using the following command:

flatpak install --user https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.apache.netbeans.flatpakref

uninstall

If necessary, we want uninstall Netbeans from our computer, we will only have to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and use this other command:

flatpak --user uninstall org.apache.netbeans

For more information about this program, users can consult the Wiki or the documentation offered on the project website.