Defaulting To JDK 1.6 In NetBeans 6.5 On OSX

February 17, 2009 · Filed under Point2 - Technical · Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

We try to stay current with our technologies at Point2. An example of this is using the most recent Java platform, Java 6 (JDK 1.6) and modern IDEs such as NetBeans 6.5. However, staying up to date with technology is not always as simple as it could be. Java 6 was released in December 2006 and NetBeans 6.5 was released almost 2 years later in November 2008 and yet it still wants to use Java 5 (JDK 1.5) as the default Java Platform, regardless of what you have set in the OSX Java preferences. Here is how you can set NetBeans 6.5 to use JDK 1.6 by default.

  • Ensure that JDK 1.6 and NetBeans 6.5 are installed
  • Locate the NetBeans config file, typically located at “/Applications/NetBeans/NetBeans 6.5.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/etc/netbeans.conf” and open the file in your favourite editor
  • Set the “netbeans_jdkhome” parameter to the JDK 1.6 home directory (ie. netbeans_jdkhome=
    /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Home)
  • In NetBeans, right click on the project in the project window and select “Properties”
  • Ensure the “Source/Binary Format” is set to “1.6″
  • Click on “Tools” on the toolbar and select “Java Platforms”
  • Under “J2SE” the default platform should now be “JDK 1.6″

By: Damien Gabrielson

13 Responses so far »

  1. 1

    NetbeansUser said,

    March 7, 2009 @ 7:01 AM

    Is there any way to default source/binary format to 6 for all projects?

    Reply
  2. 2

    2thyme said,

    April 2, 2009 @ 10:30 AM

    Thanks, man. Good write up.

    Reply
  3. 3

    Configuring Netbeans 6.5 to use JDK 6 on Mac OS X « Scotsman on a Horse said,

    April 2, 2009 @ 10:35 AM

    [...] Defaulting To JDK 1.6 In NetBeans 6.5 On OSX « Turning Coffee into Code Java 6 was released in December 2006 and NetBeans 6.5 was released almost 2 years later in November 2008 and yet it still wants to use Java 5 (JDK 1.5) as the default Java Platform, regardless of what you have set in the OSX Java preferences. Here is how you can set NetBeans 6.5 to use JDK 1.6 by default. Published in: [...]

    Reply
  4. 4

    jasonsmart said,

    April 4, 2009 @ 2:41 PM

    Thanks for this,
    Being a OS X noob though, it took me a while to find out I needed to CRTL-Click on /Applications/Netbeans/Netbeans 6.5.app and choose “Show Package Contents” in order to get to the rest of the path Contents/Resources/Netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf

    Also searching for netbeans.conf using Spotlight produced no results.

    Reply
  5. 5

    Hugh Buchanan said,

    April 15, 2009 @ 8:31 AM

    Very helpful, but one additional step was necessary for my needs:

    * Open the “asenv.conf” file. In my case, it can be found at: /Applications/NetBeans/glassfish-v2ur2/config/asenv.conf
    * Set the “AS_JAVA” parameter to the Java 1.6 directory. My entry reads:
    AS_JAVA=”/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home”

    Reply
  6. 6

    dgp2 said,

    April 20, 2009 @ 11:46 AM

    Thanks Hugh for the great comment. A co-worker was trying to get glassfish to use 1.6, which also uses 1.5 by default, and what you said is exactly what is needed to get it working! Thanks again.

    Reply
  8. 8

    edansys » Blog Archive » links for 2009-05-18 said,

    May 18, 2009 @ 7:30 PM

    [...] Defaulting To JDK 1.6 In NetBeans 6.5 On OSX « Developing Code, Connecting Industry Setting default Java version in Netbeans (tags: osx netbeans) [...]

    Reply
  9. 9

    Bharat Manocha said,

    May 18, 2009 @ 11:50 PM

    thanks for info ;) i had lost lots of time before visiting this link. it’s really worthful (:-)

    Reply
  11. 11

    David Ferrero said,

    August 11, 2009 @ 8:43 AM

    My main interest was to debug an application running with JDK 1.6 from within NetBeans. But the Project–>Properties–>Java Sources Classpath : Java Platform never displayed JDK 1.6 as a choice even though I have 1.6 installed and even though OS X Java Preferences was set to default to JDK 1.6.

    Obvious now, but I simply clicked Manage Java Platforms –> Add Platform and navigated to JDK 1.6.0/Home then added the src.jar and docs.jar and bingo – I am now able to debug my application spawned with Ant from JDK 1.6 from within NetBeans running with JDK 1.5.

    Reply
  12. 12

    Nathan said,

    August 20, 2009 @ 2:58 PM

    Finally! Thanks god for you buddy.. was a breeze after going through your blog.. good stuff.

    Reply
  13. 13

    Jeff said,

    November 20, 2009 @ 11:22 AM

    thanks! very handy

    Reply

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