Perhaps the biggest news in all of Javadom this past week was the release of NetBeans 7.1.

JavaFX 2.0 [specifically JavaFX 2.0.2 SDK support (release notes), which is downloaded separately] is the featured attraction for NetBeans 7.1. The Oracle press release (5 January 2012) announcing NetBeans 7.1 refers to it as the "first IDE to Support JavaFX 2.0" and the NetBeans 7.1 Release Notes list "Support for JavaFX 2.0" first on the list of new features. In NetBeans 7.1 geared for building better user interfaces, Joab Jackson states that this release "adds full support for Swing, JSF, and JavaFX 2."

The title of Charles Humble's post is "NetBeans 7.1 Shipped with JavaFX 2.0 and CSS3 Support" and talks about NetBeans "active users" exceeding one million last summer. As that post's title suggests, improved CSS3 support (including for JavaFX) is also featured in NetBeans 7.1. The NetBeans for PHP blog features a post on NetBeans 7.1 and its improved PHP features.

NetBeans 7.1 offers other new features and improvements such as more hints (see my post Seven Indispensable NetBeans Java Hints for more information on NetBeans hints). Improvements and new features related to Maven are offered as are C/C++ improvements. The new Visual Debugger and profiler improvements are also welcome.

No product is perfect, especially when first released, and NetBeans 7.1 has some known issues. The post Netbeans 7.1 is out but watch out before you grab that hot cake! references some of these.

Not only has the release of NetBeans 7.1 generated significant press and blogosphere coverage, but adoption seems robust as well. Although still in its very early stages, a new Java.net poll asking "How soon do you plan to start using the just-released NetBeans 7.1?" currently shows 33% of the respondents stating they are already using NetBeans 1.7 and another 15% stating they intend to upgrade within the month. Given that almost 1/3 of the respondents are saying "Never, since I don't use NetBeans," that's a large percentage of the NetBeans users who have or soon will be upgrading.

From http://marxsoftware.blogspot.com/2012/01/netbeans-71-released.html