Disable Netbeans start page

Netbeans, the open source and free Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from Sun is developing into a great piece of software with each release. They are also trying to be the new Eclipse and seem to have done a good job at that. One of the things that could send a developer away towards Eclipse is the rich set of plugins that Eclipse already has but Netbeans has the Java advantage. Its a complete platform for Java development. But every piece of software has some basic thing done wrong, could be because of neglecting it or because they didn’t feel it mattered or there was a conflict in how it should be implemented or anything else. One of such things in Netbeans in the option to disable the start page. I had to browse through all the tabs in the preferences window before I found it at the bottom of the start page itself, which is not such a good place for it to be. People with larger screens may easily notice it, but still they should have it integereated into the preferences page.

NetbeansSo in one line, to disable the start page in Netbeans 6 scroll to the bottom of the page and uncheck the option that says Show On Startup.

Netbeans

Update: In case you feel like you are missing the start page and wondering how to get it back, here is the procedure

Click on the Help Menu for Netbeans

You will see a menu item Start Page, click on it and now you will see the start page, now make sure you check the Show on Statup option so that Netbeans shows you the start page from the next time.

Thanks to jav for asking this intriguing question in the comments

17 comments ↓

#1 zaak on 07.21.08 at 12:36 am

Bah, finally I found it. Thanks for tip :)

#2 thenoob on 07.23.08 at 12:29 pm

the ’start page’ was the first thing i wanted to disable in the netbeans..
and couldnt find how to do it lol until i visited this site :)

#3 jav on 08.11.08 at 1:48 am

Thank you - I’ve been looking for that for a while now. But now that I’ve disabled the page that contains the control to show the page…How on earth would I enable it again? Not that I want to!

#4 Petri Sirkkala on 11.03.08 at 1:20 am

Oh, at the bottom of the page. I had been clicking the close button for two months now. Finally got irritated enough to Google for it.

Thanks.

-Pete

#5 Gadget on 11.11.08 at 6:17 am

I can’t believe!
xD
are you blind? O_o

Yeah. It’s very interesting and useful article. But! Keep your eyes wide open O_O

#6 Ix on 01.04.09 at 8:56 pm

I use to work a lot with netbeans and linux forwarding netbeans through X11 from the development server to my laptop. I works pretty well and saves me a lot of compile time, but for some reason, the start page slows down the whole thing, I only get a good response after closing the dam page. Thank you for your help you save me 30 seconds each time I start netbeans! :)

#7 Mike Lopez on 01.09.09 at 5:30 pm

LOL, didn’t notice that checkbox was there! Hahaha. Thanks for the useful tip that saved me from that start page. :)

#8 Json on 01.16.09 at 7:28 am

Thanks for the hint!
NB 6.5 drives me mad… there are so many bugs! My favorite: shortcuts are not working (in win xp) for no obvious reason.
So I do not agree on your comment that Sun did a good job on creating the new eclipse, what ever this will be ;-)

#9 Rohit on 04.17.09 at 1:23 am

Thanks for the Info

#10 Wilson Crespo on 05.11.09 at 9:29 pm

This tip is so useful for newbies like me, thanks a lot.

#11 DJohn on 06.04.09 at 12:20 pm

Thanks

#12 Darkstar on 06.14.09 at 8:22 pm

Thank you!

#13 Rogerborg on 08.19.09 at 1:40 am

And thanks from me too. Making me read a page that I just want to get rid of in order to get rid of it? Bah, they might as well force feed us the EULA on startup. ;)

#14 Jeroen on 09.08.09 at 11:57 pm

Finally! Thanks for the tip.

#15 axlvgscmlahw on 10.05.09 at 3:56 pm

bsjksoodfquw

#16 Guilala on 11.17.09 at 8:12 am

Thanks for showing how to disable the world’s most ugly startpage.

#17 tphuy on 03.08.10 at 6:31 pm

Thanks you! A+++

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