Chapter 1 ■ the Different faCes of Java: Create a Java 9 Development Workstation
To confirm how NetBeans 9 is set up, use the Help ➤ About menu sequence, which is seen on the
right hand side of Figure 1-12, showing your product version, Java JDK version being used, Java Runtime
Environment (JRE) being used (JRE is part of the JDK install) to run NetBeans 9.0, Operating System being
used, and the User directory location and Cache directory location. If you ever have a problem installing
subsequent versions of this IDE, try deleting these two (that is, deleting the \dev folder), as they contain
information from the previous NetBeans installation which may misdirect the next NetBeans installation.
Next, I’m going to show you how and where to go to install the Apache NetBeans product, as at some
point in time, NetBeans 9.0 will be finished transferring over from Oracle to Apache (just as was done with
Open Office). I’m not sure when this will happen, probably sometime in 2018, but I cannot wait that long to
release this book, so I am simply going to show you all of the different ways that you can get NetBeans 9.0.
Note that if you wanted to use 8.2, on top of Java 8, this is fine as well, as the JavaFX 8 (and JavaFX 9) classes
(API) have not changed. This is because the focus for Java 9 (and NetBeans 9) was just to introduce modules
into the workflow and get the IDE working, so JavaFX was left alone and the focus was on the other parts of
Java (as you’ll see, JavaFX is the Java multimedia/game engine).
Installing the Apache NetBeans 9 (Development) IDE
Next we are going to take a look at the Apache Jenkins and GIT Repository for NetBeans, which is where the
software is going to “land” after the transfer currently underway is finished. The Apache Jenkins’ NetBeans
site is located at https://builds.apache.org/job/incubator-netbeans-windows/ and is what is called
an “incubator” site. An incubator is used to hatch eggs, so the inference here is that until a NetBeans 9
on Java 9 bundle is “hatched,” this is where you can get the NetBeans 9 IDE software while it is still under
development. You can see what the Apache Jenkins website looks like at this time (there is a chance that this
could change) in Figure 1-13. As you can see it has quite a few options.
Figure 1-12. Launch NetBeans using the Desktop or Quick Launch (Silver Cube), and make sure the software
will launch