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Any recommendation for a good Java IDE?

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I am curious about what the modders are using for their development environment (IDE). Anyone got any recommendations for a good, low-cost or preferably free IDE? And any other tools needed or recommended?

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I'm not sure about modders, but I absolutely love IntelliJ IDEA. I use the community edition for my personal projects, though I still work on Wurm in Eclipse. I'm planning on porting my projects over soon though. IntelliJ can take some time to learn, but there's plenty of documentation and help just a Google search away.

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I also use IntelliJ IDEA when I mode wurm unlimited or run around the code.

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im a complete newb with codding/modding but i started using netbeans

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I personally prefer NetBeans, but this is mostly matter of preference in Java world, it is hard to say which IDE is better.

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Personally i use Intellij IDEA for all my Java and Scala projects.

 

I used to use Eclipse at some point, but when i started writing in Scala the support in eclipse was completely FUBAR (i hear it's better nowadays), so i switched to IDEA and over time moved most of my java projects as well.

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Intellij IDEA community ed.

 

Why? Prior to the WU launch and me getting into modding I was using JetBrains' Python IDE, PyCharm, to write Python code. It is awesome.  When WU launched and I needed to use Java to mod I gave Intellij a try. This was because PyCharm was so good and there was a free community edition of Intellij. I haven't felt the need to try anything else.

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Thanks for the suggestions and I am giving IntellJ a try. It seems pretty great so far.

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Eclipse is my favourite IDE for Java development specifically (any other language and it falls down a bit). My reasons:

 

1. It makes exporting to jars really easy. For a wurm mod project, click File>Export, JAR file (not Runnable but the basic one), tick your project, where to put the jar (in your mod folder) and what to name it, and you're done!

2.  It also has an inbuilt backup system which allows you to recover and compare files with their history in a properly intuitive interface (shows you the changes between versions and allows you to go through and apply/revert specific changes).

 

3. These days, it automates plug-and-play coding, so you can run a program in debug mode, change it's code and not even have to restart the program to test it. This isn't true for wurm modding though, since you'll be relying on modloader.

 

4. Keyboard shortcuts. The following are a few examples: 

    a ) Ctrl+Shift+O will tidy up and automatically import whatever files are needed for the class you're viewing. So if you reference some wurm spell, you don't need to worry about where you're importing it from, Ctrl+Shift+O will find it for you! If there are multiple possibilities, Eclipse will prompt you to pick one.

    b ) Ctrl+Shift+NUMPAD_/ will 'fold' all your methods and inner classes, so you can view just the method declarations (from a C++ perspective, you could think of this as header mode). You can then click to expand whichever methods you're interested in (Or press Ctrl+Shift+NUMPAD_* to unfold all again).

    c ) Ctrl+O will provide a little dialog for you to start typing a method name and provides a list of matching names for you to select one from. Eclipse will then take you straight to that method!
    d ) Alt+Shift+R will rename the selected variable/method/class name not just where you're editing, but every reference of that variable/method/class in your entire project as well! Got a method that's used in 100 places? Only rename it in one place using this command!

    e ) Ctrl+Alt+H will find every reference to whatever variable/method you have selected, and allow you to see it's entire call hierarchy, examine all the places its called (this doesn't work for compiled code calls though).

    f ) Ctrl+I automatically corrects indentation for the currently viewed file. It won't correct indentation as you type (unless you tell it to), which is good for people like myself who prefer to control the way it looks. By the way, the rules it uses for this is configurable.

    g ) Ctrl+Q takes you to the last bit of code you edited

5. Starts up in 30 seconds and doesn't even require installing :P

6. Configurability. So many things are configurable. You can specify commands that allow you to type "blah" in a file, hit Ctrl+Space and have it generate template code that you've specified. The way your interface is set up is also configurable, and has multiple perspectives that you can quickly flip between or create. You can change the font that it uses, the size, the colours of everything (syntax, background colours), and more.

 

7. Further automation. If you have an error in your code and you hover your mouse over it, eclipse will pop up with a menu with up to 5 ways to automatically solve it for you. Note that if it's a logical error it may not be able to, but if it's simply a bit of code your missing, incorrect spelling, or you forgot to import something, it can do that for you. It can also auto-generate getters, setters, delegate methods, and constructors at the click of a button. 

Note that I'm not saying other IDE's don't have any of these features, and some have features Eclipse doesn't have, but these are the reasons I like Eclipse.

Edited by Merivo

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Also use IntelliJ IDEA. All the JetBrains IDE's are fantastic, even for my day job (NodeJS) I use webstorm (by them too).

There is no best, it's all personal preference. NetBeans is free, but JetBrains is the best $50 I spent.

You can go full on editor, but you need to know your language spec well to do that, and besides, a good IDE can handle your checkstyle, hinting and all those checks for you, by the time you push it to up/C.I , you're good.

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I've used both Netbeans & Eclipse and thought both were pretty not terrible. That was quite a while ago though.

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If you are just looking to tinker around and not a well versed developer I would strongly suggest IntelliJ IDE. I only suggest this because it is extremely light-weight. My personal preference is Net Beans but this is a significantly larger IDE and much more of a "commitment" so to speak. If you plan on only tinkering or nothing very advanced, the larger IDEs such as Net Beans or Eclipse will be extreme overkill.

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I like eclipse, because I have gotten used to it, and some of the tools work quite nice. The fernflower default decompiler for IntelliJ added too much weirdness and non logical terms for fields for my taste. However IntelliJ is a good environment, Net Beans as well. Eclipse was just something I had used in the past so it was easier for me to dive into it. Not to mention I could not get Net Beans to compile correctly, again likely user error from not being used to it.

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Moved to  IntelliJ  as eclipse piss me off just too much.

IntelliJ have good integration with enterprise tools.
IntelliJ  have good testing capabilities.
And it is not crash without reasons...as eclipse do.

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IntelliJ community is free and has very good tools. You just need to learn how to use it and you will be happy with it. 

These are also people who make resharper and it is a coders handy tool.

Deep intelligence

After IntelliJ IDEA's indexed your source code, it offers blazing fast and intelligent experience by giving relevant suggestions in every context: instant and clever code completion, on-the-fly code analysis and reliable refactoring tools.

 

Also ability to compare files so makes patching easy every update specially when you code straight into the code and not use any sort of modloader. 

I always code right into the code itself and don't use modloader. It is the perfect tool for coding in WU.

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Also, there are some licensing differences between mentioned IDE's which you may consider (or not, depends on project).

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For wurm modding Eclipse is best, at least I use Eclipse for WU, and Notepad++ very important to have Notepad++.

 

I am using IntelliJ IDEA for anything else of course.

Edited by Sklo:D

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