Introduction

CashForward is built on the NetBeans RCP, using the sources from 6.5 M2. It was initiated through a NetBeans Innovator's Grant. Although certainly not perfect, CashForward should be a decent application to reference as you begin to build your own application on the NetBeans RCP platform.

Prerequisites

The developer documentation assumes intermediate knowledge of Java and some familiarity with NetBeans. Understanding something about Swing, Hibernate, JPA, GlazedLists will also help.

The NetBeans Platform

What is the NetBeans Platform? In short, a collection of APIs that enable developers to build modular, robust Swing applications. The tools and APIs provide such capabilities as Window management, Form layout, Selection management, Data management, Searching, Logging, Help and Documentation and much more.

The NetBeans team has gone out of their way to make the platform APIs easy to use. The NetBeans development environment has excellent support for building Platform applications.

Contents

• How CashForward Benefits from NetBeans
• CashForward Services Design
• CashForward User Interface Design
• Appendix: Interface patterns found in CashForward