When I first started writing
Java apps I was using Eclipse. By the time I was using 3.x w/ webtools I got frustrated enough w/ the bugs to switch to Netbeans and have been pretty happy with it. However, netbeans just doesn't stack up (even 5.0 beta) to eclipse as far as features and configurability. I really like the eclipse
IDE better in a lot of ways.
I've been
testing 3.1.1 w/ webtools 1.0RC1 the last couple of days and I like it...but there are features in Netbeans that I immediately miss.
For example how can I configure eclipse (if at all) to do the following?
1. In netbeans if I create a jar library...a .jar is automatically built for me when I build the project. If I create a web project and set the jar project as a dependency...the jar is automatically placed in the /WEB-INF/lib folder for me when I build the web project. I can reference a project to another project like this in eclipse but alas...no jar creation automation. Is this possible in eclipse?
2. In netbeans I can build the web project and publish it (without having to restart
tomcat). In eclipse it seems that publishing doesn't force tomcat to reload the app automatically...will I always have to restart Tomcat?
3. If I take my laptop offline, eclipse starts to complain that it can't find defined DTDs in my descriptors...it seems that eclipse needs to be "online" to compile. I have been able to work in Netbeans offline. This was a huge headache for me a while back when I attempted to demo an app for my boss and all of a sudden my eclipse projects were filled w/ build errors. This prompted me to start looking at Netbeans.
Overall even though I think eclipse is a better IDE in many ways...it seems to be much buggier. And, the visual editor plugin is too slow or buggy to even seriously consider whereas Netbeans has a *great* Swing visual editor...especially nb 5.0.
Thanks!
-v
