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[pjcast]

I recently had the opportunity to test out something that I normally would not have thought of looking at... the Netbeans platform. I knew of and have used Netbeans on many occasions (being my preferred java IDE), but I was not aware of the coolness that is the "Netbeans Platform".

For those unaware (like I was), here is a nice link with some screenies: here. Basically, the "Netbeans Platform" is the IDE itself. So, what's so cool about that? Well, the cool part is that you can very easily build modules, plugins, etc... ok, so you can do that with Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc. But, you can also ship the IDE with the stock modules all disabled (or not) and have your own branded for your application. This framework already provides so many rich features that I think my choice for .Net for Ogre Studio is a bad choice... Mainly, I had to re-implement many basic things and still am not as feature rich as these other tools. Of course, .Net is awesome for creating custom controls, but doing some controls in Java is also not so bad.

Anyway, I am now also aware that eclipse also offers an "Eclipse Platform ", so I think I may have to do some research into which platform is the best to use as a base in future tools. Since .net and Java are similar, at least most code can be reused Although, I am also aware of the Ogre4j guys already making a tool with Eclipse and Ogre, so I will also have to research that a bit more.

Feel free to post any thoughts, comments, choices, etc about either platform or even with reasons to stick with .Net... The biggest advantage I can see is that with Netbeans or Eclipse, the tool starts off multiplatform :-)

[SSG]

Hi pjcast.

I have been playing around with Irrlicht and wanted to make an editor specific to my game engine requirements. I just discovered the NetBeans platform and went through a couple of screencast tutorials. I think it's definitely the way to go for this kind of thing, especially now that the Matisse GUI builder is much more stable.

I think the most difficult thing you will come across is how to communicate between Java and Ogre. Are you using Ogre4j or native Ogre? Native Ogre will always be more feature complete and current, but I wonder if Ogre4j would be a suitable substitute; It would certainly speed up development time and you don't want to slow down your development as a consequence of using the NetBeans platform which is supposed to speed up your development.

There's also the option of using the Eclipse RCP especially now that there is an Ogre4Eclipse distribution as part of Ogre4j, but personally I've never been a big fan of Eclipse and I'm sure it will be much easier with NetBeans.

I realise this is an old post and you may have given up on the idea. Please let us know how you progressed with this.

Cheers
Steve

[mysterycoder]

How about the newly LGPL'd Qt?
I do realize it's not quite as much as a "framework" as those you mentioned, but it is still quite featureful.

Though I do have to say, I just checked out the NetBeans site and their platform seems good at first glance.

[pjcast]

I haven't progressed with this. More of a would have been a good platform.

But yeah, both using Java and C# has problems with interopting with native Ogre. There are always some compromises. Though, at least with Netbeans platform (or even Eclipse, but I agree, I've also preferred Netbeans to eclipse) you have much of an IDE system and plenty of plugins/tools available.

But, mysterycoder makes a fantastic point, with Qt being open sourced to LGPL, there is really good reason to prefer working natively with C/C++ and Ogre. Of course, you loose some of that rapid design / development for easier integration. I guess, though, it really depends on how close (low lever) to Ogre you need to be with your tool. But, I'd probably use C/C++ & Qt for any future developments with Ogre and toolsets.