Apache NetBeans, the free open-source IDE for Java, C/C++, PHP, and HTML5, released new version 28 few days ago.
The new IDE release updated UI with a tool widget to execute common text encoding in the IDE: Base64, URL and Hex encoding/decoding.
It added delete button for the SSH Connection Dialog, updated Add Language Description panel layout to be properly resizable, and brought a couple of smaller improvements relating to keyboard shortcuts in various platform components.
NetBeans 28 added Java SE 26 support for Tomcat, TomEE, and GlassFish, though it’s still in early access development stage. It also added support for the latest stable GlassFish 7.0.25, and GlassFish 8.0.0-M12 pre-release.
The LSP client now permits multiple LSP servers for each file/mime type. And, LSP Protocol provides the language clients to send messages to the language server to shutdown and exit.
For the editor, it added markdown file template, moved CheckRegex action to IDE Tools menu, improved the goto/jumpto dialog, and added tooltips to Projects, Files and Favorites tabs.
For Java, it updated net.java.html library to version 1.8.2, added opentest4j-1.3.0.jar to JUnit5, switched CI to JDK 25 GA, and added enhanced switch support to ThrowableNotThrown.
PHP features an auto-completion for the use keyword in the body of a class, trait, and enum. And, it fixed the coloring for Twig 3.15 inline comments.
Other changes in NetBeans 28 include:
- Honor the JAVA_HOME environment variable in nbexec script.
- Add missing CSS properties : margin-block, pading-block, scroll-behavior, conic-gradient, filter-effects.
- Add extra file extensions support for Groovy.
- More defensive guards against invalid code points in Ant Preferences.
- Add copy button to Maven action customizer.
- Add java/gradle.test to Gradle CI.
- Support jakarta.persistence in the JPQL query executor.
- Support nested and toplevel non-public tests and stabiize result extraction for Gradle.
- Indicate support for Gradle’s incremental annotation processing.
- Improve maven goal re-run property handling and UI.
- Add context menu entries in Git Repository Browser for Add a remote and remove a remote.
For more details and source tarball, go to this Github release page.
Get NetBeans 28
Apache provides official binary package for NetBeans 28, which is available to download at the link below:
The platform independent binary package contains executable files and runtime libraries. Simply decompress it and run the executable file for your OS will launch it.
For Ubuntu on AMD/Intel or ARM64 platforms, there’s also an official Snap package that runs in sandbox environment. User may simply launch App Center (or Ubuntu Software for 22.04-) to search & install the package.
