IDE

Every program or web page you land on heavily depends on tons of lines of code. Multiple programming languages exist, all functioning in the same manner, but using different functions, and development environments. In case your knowledge is related to Java, IDE can help you easily build, and compile your projects.

One of the main advantages is that the application can run on multiple platforms, since it requires Java Runtime Environment to function. What’s more, there’s no installation involved, allowing you to carry the application, as well as all of your project files with you on a thumb drive to use on other PCs, without having to worry that registries get affected in any way.

With the main window up, you can start working on your projects from scratch, or load existing files through the browse dialog. You’re free to open multiple files, each of them being stored in a separate tab, making it easy to move bits of code from on to the other.

Apart from the center edit area where you get to write down all lines of code, there’s a side panel which shows all classes, and functions in a tree view, so you can easily jump to specific parts of your project. This can also be done through the search function, but there’s no replace option to fix multiple text strings inside your project.

Code is easy to track thanks to the built-in syntax highlighter. On the other hand, line numbering is not implemented on the side, and neither is there a status bar to at least show the line you’re on, or at least a specific menu to bring up to analyze the code structure-wise.

When you want to test out your work, the application can trigger the runner to go through all code. However, there aren’t any error prompts, even if there’s nothing to run, so if things work out, code is written well. There’s also a built-in compiler to bundle the code in a functional form. Even though there aren’t prompts for issues, you can keep an eye on compiler, and runner consoles to track events.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that IDE comes with good intentions, but the set of features leaves more to be desired to quickly help build Java projects. Sure enough, there’s a built-in syntax highlighter to help with code identification, but you mostly need to rely on your skills for the entire building experience, which might make some look for alternatives from the first few moments of trying it out.