For a while, the NetBeans Wiki has boasted a new ‘Ergonmoics IDE’ feature that will be included in NetBeans 6.7. At the basic level this is intended to be a feature-on-demand service.

For example, the first time you try to create a Mobile Java app, the mobile-related plugins are activated.

During the initial install, the first screen gives you the standard options to configure what gets installed. In the screenshot below, I am installing the ‘Java’ download bundle. You will see that Ergonomics is an option to install.

NetBeans 6.7 Milestone 2 Installer Screen

NetBeans 6.7 Milestone 2 Installer Screen

 Once you have finished the installation, start NetBeans. For me the initial start was quite quick, though I did just get a new dual-core laptop (finally).

I went to the main menu and selected Tools > Plugins. The Plugin window opened and I noticed a number of plugins were installed, but deactivated by default, as shown in the image below.

List of deactivated plugins in the plugin manager

List of deactivated plugins in the plugin manager

Most of the web-related plugins are deactivated. If the Ergonomics feature was not installed, I would think this would be a bug since I specifically installed the ‘Java’ bundle which typically has a number of web-related plugins activated by default. However, with the Ergonomics feature installed, this is intended.

To test this, I exited the Plugins window and went to  the main menu to create a new project. I selected File > New Project and selected Java Web > Web Application. When I clicked the next button, I saw a warning that support for Java EE needed to be activated, as shown below.

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When I clicked the Activate button I saw a small progress meter in the center of the New Project window letting me know the feature was currently being activated. After less than a second or two, the feature was activated and I was able to view the standard new project wizard screen for naming the project.

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As expected, a trip back to the Plugin window shows that a number of Java EE-related plugins were activated to enable me to create the Java Web project.

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In general this seems like a good feature and it works as expected. It seems especially nice for people who want to download the entire full blown IDE version, but not have every single plugin activated by default.  It would be nice if long term, it tracked the type of projects you opened, created, etc. and if you didn’t work with Java EE projects for a few weeks would automatically deactivated Java EE-related plugins.

I’ll continue playing around with it and post any updates I discover.