Apache NetBeans 27 release candidates

[ebarboni]

Release candidates for the next release of Apache NetBeans will be available weekly until release. Your help in testing, reporting and verifying issues would be highly appreciated by the whole Apache NetBeans community.

Changes from NetBeans 26 can be seen at https://github.com/apache/netbeans/releases/tag/27-rc1

Binary / source zip

Binary and source zips are available from -

https://nightlies.apache.org/netbeans/candidate/netbeans/

IMPORTANT

These release candidates are pre-release software, and not official releases of Apache NetBeans.
No Installer this round
No vscode this round

[neilcsmith-net]

Testing versions of the Friends of Apache NetBeans installers for 27-rc1 are also now available at -

https://github.com/Friends-of-Apache-NetBeans/netbeans-installers/releases/tag/v27rc1-build1

These will be the only installers for release candidates unless problems are reported on the installers themselves. Hopefully if the
process can be fully automated in future, installers can be provided for all release candidates.

Note

All installers upgrade in place. The installers will overwrite any existing NetBeans 26 installation. To downgrade, reinstall from the earlier installer.

Please note if testing the deb or rpm that GitHub replaces the ~ in the version String for release assets. They should install fine without renaming, but the hash file references the original 27~rc1 file name.

[matthiasblaesing]

Just tested NB 27-rc1 with the deb Installer and looked sane to me. Right icon is registered in gnome, label is correct, start as it should. Thanks!

[neilcsmith-net]

Thanks @matthiasblaesing If you get a chance could you check that Windows icon issue in the app list you mentioned with NB26 is now fixed too.

[matthiasblaesing]

@neilcsmith-net thanks for the reminder. Looks sane too (Install and minimal usage test was also successful):

Minimal nitpicks / observations:

• I understand, that a hypothetical installation of NB28 would replace the installed 27 version. Will the displayed version in uninstaller be updated? (i.e. is Update a deinstall/install sequence?)
• Would it be possible to name the uninstaller sensibly? See:

If there would be name "uninstall-netbeans.exe" it would raise less questions.

So experience on windows also looks good to me.

[neilcsmith-net]

@matthiasblaesing thanks for checking.

I understand, that a hypothetical installation of NB28 would replace the installed 27 version. Will the displayed version in uninstaller be updated? (i.e. is Update a deinstall/install sequence?)

Strictly speaking, InnoSetup's update does not function as an uninstall install sequence (the InnoSetup template in NBPackage has to explicitly remove some files from the previous install). However, all the version information, etc. is updated. I've not noticed any issue with older version numbers being shown anywhere, and no reports of that in the ~4 years we've been shipping this.

Would it be possible to name the uninstaller sensibly?

Unfortunately, there's not an easy way to rename this file with InnoSetup as far as I know. There are some ways of scripting it in, but I'd rather steer clear of the extra complexity and testing for now. The other longer term thing to look at is how to sign the uninstaller as well as the installer itself (note unknown publisher). With macOS, NBPackage handles all the signing. With Windows it's currently done after build. In theory, NBPackage could configure InnoSetup to do the signing during the installer build, but there's some complexity to making this work everywhere.

[matthiasblaesing]

Thanks Neil, makes sense to me.