For new users to Swing, you might be interested in this Compiling and Running Swing Programs page.

As far as working environments, for on-campus courses we are using Eclipse. You only need the Java EE Developers version if you are in CSCI 611. Otherwise, the Java Developers version works fine.

Here is a rather explicit link for downloading Java and Eclipse that I give to my CSCI 111 classes downloading software

If you use other products with supplied classes other than the Java core, you will need to

1. explicitly reference these classes in your documentation when you use them and
2. provide source for me so I can recompile your code if necessary. If you provide all of your code in a jar, you should provide everything in the jar that I will need.

To test that your code will work on my machine, I strongly recommend that you test it on a friend's machine outside of any environment.

Due to rumors and other people's experience, example, I suggest that you not use J++ from Microsoft as their Java core classes have been tweaked which makes them no longer portable to other platforms.
On the other hand, I have heard only good things about Eclipse and others ..

What do I use? I'm a little tweaked myself :-(
I use the JDK, emacs, and the command line in UNIX :-) OK, OK, lately I have become partial to Eclipse for development.

Please remember that Java and UNIX machines are case sensitive so make sure your code is careful with files and capitals and spaces (don't have spaces in file names). Also make sure that your directory separators are / not \. Your java code is only as portable as you make it...and programming environments do play subtle tricks. For example:

If you are using an environment (such as JBuilder) you should read the documentation to see if your GUIBuilder uses a default layout manager. Most of these use NO default rather than the usual Java's default of FlowLayout. Thus, what happens is that when you send me your stuff, and I run it from the command line, your layout looks terrible on my machine... it will only look alright on the platform you are using.
LESSON always use an explicit Layout Manager. (suggest GridBag Layout) if you want your java code to be portable.

1. The Beans Development Kit (BDK) (downloads in left column leads to software ) no longer points to the beanbox of my notes ...and it had a change with JDK 1.4 see my notes. SO, use my CSUC site to download the bdk1_1.zip file.
   Finally, on Windows, do not put the beanbox under "Program Files" or a directory that has a space in it. It may cause problems with connectivity during runtime (cannot make adaptors). (J2EE did not like this either.)
2. The Servlet (SDK) Development Kit (download in left column download )
3. There are numerous available web servers. I used to suggest using our UNIX machine (running Tomcat) to deploy your servlets, but due to lack of control (getting newer versions of the servlet to run, etc), I now suggest that you download Tomcat and run it on your own machine. I will run it on mine so you can send me a war file (more on that later) once yours is running fine on your own server. Tomcat works fine and we do still have it running on our UNIX machines here. But, again I suggest that you download a copy of Tomcat for your own use:
   • Tomcat , Eclipse, Tomcat and Eclipse
     Class discussion... it looks like the EE version still needs you to provide a web server. Here is a comparison between the two Eclipse versions.
     If the server is needed, I would like to stick with Tomcat.
   • Java Web Server used to be my choice of servers and it was free for 30 days (then you could download it again). It was not available for awhile. The old version used this page for set up to follow general information. The new version has its own instructions and can be downloaded with the J2EE Additional access through SUN
   • a free version of iplanet
4. Jini and Jiro

Additional information for JavaServerPages (JSPs): here and the tutorial