Red Hat Developer Studio (RHDS - JBoss IDE)

Download

Steps below are for Windows , but given the Red Hat heritage , should work ok on Linux as well.

Download From

Red Hat Developer Studio Homepage
Download Link (Http instead of FTP) - There was a problem with this link when I downloaded - to work around on right click on the above link and choose 'save target as ...'

java -jar C:\software\rhdevstudio\rhdevstudio-win32-1.0.0.beta1.jar

Follow steps

Default version of Java (the one that Java_home) points to has to be 1.5 or higher, or you won't see all the default plugins.
Click on the short cut created in the previous step
Usual short delay while it loads (with Splash Screen)
Don't share the workspace with any previous versions of eclipse - you may have plugins that cannot be restored , and stop the initial workspace state from loading correctly
Switch to Red Hat Developer Studio Perspective to see most of the WYSIWYG extensionss (Seam , JSF etc)

Install process is slicker (not just extract and run), but in practice what it gives you is
- Install of JBoss App server that the IDE can connect to
- Shortcuts on menus and desktop
Like the previous JBoss IDE (now 'Sunsetting') , the IDE is based on Eclipse , with additional plugins. Set of plugins is actually very good - saves you manually having to install them (and worth looking at on that basis alone). You can install additional plugsin (e.g. for Maven and Subversion) later. The ones you get include
- GEF and EMF (used by a lot of other plugins , a pain if you don't have them)
- Web Tools
- Enterprise Tools
- Spring IDE
  - Odd (but good) given that JBoss is pushing the (competing?) Seam framework
- Junit
- Good HTML Editing (source, source colouring and visual view) . First time I have seen this by default in an Eclipse based product
Appears to have very good integration with JSF, Struts and Seam (the Exadel Heritage)
Beta 1 Status: Appears stable enough , but as with all Beta prodcuts ; backup your files don't uninstall the
Imported projects ok from previous versions of Eclipse / JBoss IDE projects.
Underlying Eclipse Version is 3.3 (the latest version)

Size - Very big 524mb
- Size of Red Hat Distro used to be
- even netbeans is smaller - case for microsoft approach of small installer, pick what you need then downlaod
- going to complain about the size, then say it doesn't include enough(!)
Not Included
- Drools/ JBoss Rules (odd for a Red Hat project, especially that jBPM is included) - e.g. http://downloads.jboss.com/drools/updatesite/
- No Built in Maven integration - new to install it separately (Eclipse Update). from http://m2eclipse.codehaus.org/update/
- No Built in Subversion integration - new to install Subclipse separately (Eclipse Update) - http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x

Manual doesn't mention JBoss Rules (Drools) and Workflow (jBPM) - the tools for these don't appear to be integrated (yet) into the IDE. This is actually a step backwards compared to the JBoss IDE. It's a key reason I use it , so I'm disappointed that they appear to be missing.

Splash Screen - like that on Eclipse Europa (3.3) to help people get started. What you get on startup is a 'bare bones' eclipse screen ; ok if you're familiar with eclipse, but intimadating if you're no.