Last year I used Eclipse for my 3rd year project along with a plugin for designing the GUI. I started experimenting with Netbeans in September. I have found it to provide all of the functionality that Eclipse does albeit a few things are in different places, e.g. generating getters and setters for classes. However it does more out the box. The most basic version of Netbeans available for download is only 39MB and includes a graphical GUI builder. Therefore I've been using Netbeans ever since and it proved very useful for my patterns project in semester 1. I will also be making use of Netbeans for my RMI assignment due shortly.
This week I've been trying out various GUI components and deciding on suitable ones for the project. I will post a screenshot as soon as I have some basic functionality working. Anyway I've decided to use a JTree for representing the XML schema to the user. Also I decided an awt List would be handier than a JList. This will be the list of schemas the user has loaded into the application. The user will be able to select a schema from the list and this will update the JTree appropriately. An awt list is handier because of its add(String item) and add(String item, int index) methods. Whereas with JList a data model must be constructed and this is not needed for this list. Of course a JTree will need a data model but this is worth constructing for the schema and the task of doing this will be delegated to a different class.
Finally I've setup a subversion repository for my project on my redbrick account and synchronised it with the project in Netbeans. I ran into a few connection issues. This was fixed after I setup the DCU proxy in Netbeans. Using subversion will no doubt be invaluable in keeping track of project changes with the ability to compare source files with previous versions and revert if need be.
This coming week I plan to continue with GUI development and research into XML schema parsing.
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