As far as possible, 12.0 should be a consolidation of the minor releases 11.1, 11.2, and 11.3.
Hence there should be as little innovation as possible in 12.0 and as much qualitative solidifying of existing features and functionality.
The program through which qualitative consolidation takes place for 12.0 is NetCAT 12.0.
Focus areas of qualitative consolidation
- Start up experience/Ergonomics/Enablement of features
- Gradle (no test spec for this yet, since this is a new feature)
- Java Editor – prioritize new Java language features
- Jakarta EE (including Payara)
- JavaFX
- PHP Editor – focus on the newest PHP language features
- Maven
In contrast to the above, some examples of areas to deprioritize (and if anyone disagrees, they are very welcome to focus on these areas themselves):
- Ant
- CVS/Subversion etc, i.e., anything not Git (and maybe Mercurial)
- Form Editor/GUI Builder/Matisse
Features
Java
- New JDK 14 Language Features
- Records
- New JDK 13 Language Features
- New JDK 12 Language Features
- JEP 325: Switch Expressions (Preview)
- New JDK 11 Language Features
- JEP 330: Launch Single-File Source-Code Programs
Java EE
- aaa
- bbb
- ccc
JavaFX
- aaa
- bbb
- ccc
Maven
- aaa
- bbb
- ccc
Gradle
- aaa
- bbb
- ccc
PHP
- aaa
- bbb
- ccc
New features to be considered for 12.0
- New Java type, Sealed types - Will be preview in JDK 15
- Any modification to the TextBlocks - finalization (Based on JDK 15)
- Plan to create installer of any chosen projects using the JPackager.
- Copying a class externally and pasting it in NetBeans to creates class automatically.
- Support for additional breakpoints in Lambda.
- Conversion of Lambdas to Method Reference and vice-versa, what is present today iis Lambdas to Anonymous and Anonymous to Lambda conversion.
Text block language annotation, extension to text block specification, without identifying the language text blocks may not be of much use.
- Option to download Java not already present when installing NetBeans.