[dr john]

Eclipse pops up the data types required for a function or class, function or class prototypes, underlines errors and on mouseover tells you what it thinks is wrong, single click to compile and run, help, built in method summaries for classes, contract and expand classes to see the rest of the code more clearly, nice layout on screen, nice colour coding of code. I just entered an integer as the parameter for a class I made and it told me my class required a string. I deleted the second integer and the comma in this g.drawString("Sales", 20, 40); and it underlined it as an error, and on mouseover showed the correct prototype, it spots and underlines little things like variables that never actually get read, or ones you've not declared (usually that's typos of course) , Lots of things (I haven't used it for a while and am having a quick look) Yes, TextPad forces you to look at the code you write, but so does Eclipse - it's all hand coding, and THEN it tells you what is wrong. Lists warnings for things it doesn't like in a frame when you open a class to edit it. Forget to type new when declaring a class, it underlines it immediately. accidentally type g.setColor(Color.bluue) and it spots it. That all forces you to learn what you should be writting, and when things go wrong it is much easier to find the error you ignored.

If I'd used it recently I could tell you more, it's just so pleasant to use. And lots of companies have converted their own programing software to use Eclipse instead of the one they originally developed eg borland dumped theirs after years of use in favour of Eclipse.

And with little effort, it can also download the bits it needs to be a PHP editor (includes the PHP manual) or an html editor or a css editor or a C editor. It's so adaptable. TextPad can edit these other langauges too, and I still use that for php and html, but eclipse leaves it standing. Whatever you can do in TextPad, you can do faster and more accurately in eclipse.

I'm writing most of the above from memory, so there may be the odd mistake of course. And not being a java programmer, I'm bound to miss out the important bits. Remember I don't like java, but I certainly enjoyed using eclipse.

And it's free! (Open source)

[Cew27]

kool thanks for the opinions
does eclipse have a ui builder ?

[Cew27]

ok you guys got me thinking now
does eclipse have a ui editor like netbeans ?

[dr john]

I honestly don't know, i haven't programed in java for almost two years now.

[Cew27]

because i like the idea of easily creating interfaces rather than coding them i will also learn the code but it would be faster and a bit like visual basic

[Mike0001]

Originally Posted by Cew27

because i like the idea of easily creating interfaces rather than coding them i will also learn the code but it would be faster and a bit like visual basic

http://download.eclipse.org/tools/ve...938/index.html

The philosophy of Java is to do with getting away from the VB drag and drop idea, for this reason: you carefully lay out your buttons at pixel-exact positions and all is fine until you want to insert another button, when everything has to be carefully moved to new pixel perfect positions again. The Java layout managers automate this. It just involves a little extra thought at the beginning that's all.

However, these GUI builders are available as you can see. Probably the Netbeans one is more polished. Moving between Netbeans and Eclipse is not a great culture shock, they essentially provide similar features, and it is nice to see the whole class hierarchy layed out before you, all the properties and methods of objects, auto-completion and error checking, etc.

I would install both, try a simple project in both, and see how you get on. You could even use both! (Assuming your motherboard has arrived! )

[MJM]

Throw out Eclipse, use Netbeans. Netbeans is better for Java while Eclipse is better overall.

[Cew27]

ahh what to use, i have eclipse installed but i think ill give netbeans a go

[Mike0001]

LoL you don't install eclipse you just unpack it! Do uninstall it you delete it. Nice and simple...

[Cew27]

i used eclipse but i would like to be able to design interfaces for my software
so i think ill give netbeans a go