I have IntelliJ 4 and Dreamweaver MX 2004, but had been looking for an acceptable, low-cost alternative for customers and others not able (or willing) to buy more expensive tools. My experience with MyEclipse has been great so far. The more I use MyEclipse, the more impressed I've become. Below is a summary based on my experience with NetBeans, IntelliJ, Dreamweaver, and MyEclipse:
NetBeans 3.5 ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the past I tried hard to use NetBeans (as recently as NetBeans 3.5), but encountered what I consider unacceptable issues. Here are a few that I remember: - In order to use tag libraries, the TLDs MUST be in JAR files. Often, TLD files are loose and may not be packaged in JAR files. - You have to configure tag libraries for them to be supported. In IntelliJ and MyEclipse, you can just configure your web application as a project, and the IDE auto-discovers the TLDs from the application's web.xml file. - While not encouraging the use of Java in JSP pages, it is interesting to note that NetBeans 3.5 fails to resolve JavaBeans created using custom tag libraries. Thus, you cannot code to the objects created --with our product, this is a major nuisance. I'd really like to be able to recommend NetBeans and am hopeful that it succeeds, but I have visited the NetBeans website often in the past year and have failed to notice critical mass of momentum. I could be wrong, but in part this observation is based on looking at the NetBeans 4.0 roadmap and noticing little or no changes in features to be added. The last time I checked out the web app section, I couldn't find any features listed as being planned for 4.0 -- since web apps are my focus, I'm not optimistic about the 4.0 release yet. IntelliJ 4.0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~ IntelliJ is a great Java IDE and a good JSP IDE. Here are some relevant observations: - it doesn't support HTML tag completion - there isn't a "Save As", and I'm not the only one confuse by this -- supposedly, by design and a side-effect of their superb Java support. But, I found a way to workaround using Copy and Paste. - it may not be obvious on how to create new files -- it's not in the menu -- once again, a side-effect, it seems, of their focus on Java support. But, you can do it by clicking on a directory, then pressing Alt-Insert -- then an option to create a new file appears. Dreamweaver MX 2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I know a lot about JSP support in Dreamweaver, having used all releases since 1.0. In the original Dreamweaver MX release, Macromedia added lots of cool JSP support, including support for custom tag libraries. But, nothing has changed for JSP support in almost two years -- perhaps the next release will address JSP developer needs. Here are some observations: - DWMX is a great tool for developing web apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I still use it often for visual editing and other uses, but don't use it for JSP development. - the JSP toolbar added in the original MX was copied from the HomeSite JSP toolbar, but it was never finished! Macromedia released MX with a half-completed toolbar and didn't fix it in the MX 2004 release --- grrr. If you're familiar with Homesite, you'll notice that many of the wizards in Homesite's JSP toolbar don't exist (weren't finished?) in Dreamweaver MX. Clicking on some of the JSP toolbar buttons will result in some JSP code being placed in your page, but required attributes are not added! - in order to use custom JSP tags, you have to configure them. This isn't a big deal, but it would be nice if they could be auto-discovered like in IntelliJ and MyEclipse. - Javadoc comments are not readily available. MyEclipse ~~~~~~~~~ I'm enthusiastic about the current MyEclipse release (3.7) that works with Eclipse 3.0 M7. I'd consider using MyEclipse 2.7 and Eclipse 2.x, but there are too many cool new, useful features in Eclipse 3.0 to not use the milestone builds. Together, Eclipse and the MyEclipse plug-in have solved all critical issues I'm aware of. MyEclipse Features (from their home page - http://www.myeclipseide.com/index.php) Web Development Tools ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Smart editors with code completion and syntax coloring: JSP, HTML, Struts, XML, CSS, and J2EE deployment descriptors. - XML editing with smart code completion, DTD caching for offline support and outline navigation viewer - Struts support with configuration editor with code completion and layout flow viewer - JSP syntax validation and native JSP debugging - full support for JSR045. - Step Through Debugging for Included JSP Files - JSP Rendering - Support for JSP 2.0 expression language - Customizable creation templates for JSP's HTML, XML, Servlets, and Applets. - Integrated browser for real-time rendering. - XDoclet Support Productivity Wizards ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Creation of Web, EAR and EJB projects. - Java Project to Web Project enablements. - EJB Wizards - Sync-on Demand automated deployment of applications to integrated servers. - Archive Based Deployment (EAR & WAR) Application Server Integration ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Over 20 application server connectors including Bejy Tiger, JBoss, Jetty, Jonas, JRun, Oracle, Orion, Resin, Tomcat, WebLogic and WebSphere. - Integrated controls for starting, stopping servers. - Full hot swap debugging support for deployed applications. Packaging and Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Windows, Linux and Mac OS/X support. - Professional installer. - Auto update enabled - Free o-nline support. - Documentation and tutorials. If that's not enough, check out the MyEclipse road map for the next two releases (http://www.myeclipseide.com/ContentExpress-display-ceid-6.html) The only annoyance that I have is that in the current release, the project folder cannot be the same as your web application folder -- but this will be addressed in the next release, due in a couple of months. And, like just about every tool I've used, I have my list of minor annoyances that I'm hoping to get addressed. Based on their responsiveness, I'm expecting that they will seriously consider my issues. Also, if you look at the Eclipse Plug-in sites, you'll find that MyEclipse get around 8.5/10 as their rating, one of the tops for Eclipse plug-ins. Lomboz, the closest freeware equivalent, only gets around a 6.x/10. The MyEclipse support team has been very responsive to bugs I filed, fixing them quickly. And, Genuitec, the developers of MyEclipse, have been added to the Eclipse board, so they'll they'll have significant input into the future of Eclipse. Give MyEclipse a try -- it's a great option for an unbeatable price. Steve > -----Original Message----- > From: Henri Yandell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 6:20 AM > To: Tag Libraries Users List > Subject: Re: JSP development environments > > > Is there a free trial for MyEclipse with Eclipse 3.0 yet? > Colleagues have bought it and liked it, but we've not started > a new project with it yet as we're mopping up the last > project so I can't verify if it works well over time. MyEclipse 3.7 is available for a trial download right now and works with Eclipse 3.0 M7. You can try it for 30 days, but the subscription is only $29/year -- a real bargain. > For all the people saying 'jbuilder, netbeans, eclipse' etc, > I'd like to hear if any particular one tackles the problem in > a radically different and better way. Or if it just gives > them colour coding. Eclipse' support is mainly through > plugins, so do plugins exist for the other IDEs, or are they > all just the stock features that come with the IDE? How about > the Websphere IDE? > > Dreamweaver obviously tackles it differently as it approaches > it from the side of a website and not just the front end of > Java code. However, Dreamweaver is not JSP only so you're > stuck with ASP/PHP generalities in the general concept of the > application which might mean there are nice features you > might not be getting. > > Does Struts Studio contain any JSP stuff, or solely Struts > based? [Ooo, they have a JSF Studio coming soon...and this > all plugs into Eclipse]. > > Hen > > > > On Thu, 25 Mar 2004, Lorenzo Sicilia wrote: > > > Zachary Hartley wrote: > > > > > Hello, > > > > > > I've just started a web project that aims to be pure JSP. > > > Unfortunately, I'm very new to all of this and have not found a > > > satisfactory environment in which to develop JSP pages. > Normally, I > > > use Eclipse for my day to day Java programming, but I've > found the > > > various plugins for Eclipse to be somewhat lacking so far > (Lombez, MyEclipse, et al). > > > > The best solution is MyEclipse with Eclipse. With the last > release 2.7 > > there is a lot of improvements about jsp, jstl and ear/war > application. > > There is a free trial. > > > > In my opinion in the future will be two IDE: > > - eclipse > > - .Net studio > > > > Than I think is better choose the right IDE, today ;) > > > > Regards Lorenzo Sicilia > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > For additional commands, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
