Appendix D NetBeans Sun Microsystems launched the NetBeans open source project in 2000. The name NetBeans came from Netbeans Ceska Republika, a Czech company that Sun bought over. The new project was based on the code Sun acquired as the result of the purchase. This appendix provides a quick tutorial to using NetBeans to build Java applications. NetBeans requires a JDK to work. Download and Installation You can download NetBeans free from http://netbeans.org. The latest version at the time of writing is 6.9. NetBeans is written in Java and, as such, it can run on any platform where Java is available. Each distribution includes an installer for easy installation. Make sure you download the correct version for your operating system. The installer guides you through step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow. You will be prompted to agree on the terms and conditions of use, specify the installation directory, and select the JDK version to use if your computer has more than one. Once installed, you can run the NetBeans IDE just like you would other applications. Creating a Project NetBeans organizes resources in projects. Therefore, before you can create a Java class, you must first create a project. To do so, follow these steps. 1. Click File, New Project. The New Project dialog will be displayed (See Figure D.1). 647