Eclipse vs Netbeans for android game

[beast]

I am attempting to make a game in java, that could be an app for an android. I am new to java and have never programmed in it before, but have done some light programming before. In fact I have a working version of the game in visual basic (which seemed a bit too easy to program ). I'm considering which IDE to use, eclipse or netbeans. From a little research it seems netbeans is better for graphics, but eclipse is the standard android IDE. Is it possible to make the graphics in netbeans and then copy the code to eclipse, or am I better off with just using eclipse from the get go?

Also are there any good tutorials for java as well as one of the above to IDEs (preferably together). I found The Java™ Tutorials which seems to be a good one for netbeans (one of the first steps is to download it), but I couldn't find a good eclipse + java tutorial.

Thank you for your time,

[pbrockway2]

Given that the android developer site is designed with Eclipse in mind (the tutorials and things assume Eclipse) I think Eclipse would be the way to go.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "graphics" but assuming you mean the graphical user interface there are a couple of points to be made. The first is that although Oracle's Tutorial - the Swing (gui) section - does have some pages that push you towards Netbeans, the bulk of the Tutorial does not make *any* assumption about what IDE (if any) you are using. Those pages were added later and savour somewhat of "selling" Swing by showing how easy it is. Most people recommend *not* using Netbeans or any IDE that generates code if your intention is to learn how to use Swing. Autogenerated code is no royal road to learning GUI programming in Java, but, rather, a prison that keeps you from being aware of the code and understanding what it does.

The second point renders the first rather moot: Android programs don't use Swing!

You should have some facility with Java in general before attacking an Android app. Oracle's Tutorial is good for this - using Eclipse, Netbeans, a decent text editor or whatever. The Swing section is not, however, directly applicable.

[jammas615]

The android SDK basically plugs into eclipse very easily and without hassle, you can download it and install through the Get New Software(something like that anyway) menu.
ADT Plugin for Eclipse | Android Developers

[ozzyman]

As pbrockway said, the android platform doesnt include Swing, it uses its own GUI which is very basic and very simple to use. In eclipse you can drag and drop android gui widgets but its not very helpful and its pretty pointless since the GUI can be written in XML (if youre familiar with basic html this will be a breeze). Netbeans with Swing isnt all that. It seems easy at the start.. dragging and dropping.
. but as soon as you realise you need to rearrange things thats when all the problems start. You can end up spending so much time fiddling with the graphical view and it not doing what you intended it would have been faster to hard code it. Ive tried visual basic editor back in school days and trust me it isnt a problem. Netbeans is incredibly buggy and the visual editor sucks. It has no comparison to MS VB graphic editor.

[jammas615]

Netbeans with Swing isnt all that. It seems easy at the start.. dragging and dropping. but as soon as you realise you need to rearrange things thats when all the problems start. You can end up spending so much time fiddling with the graphical view and it not doing what you intended it would have been faster to hard code it. Ive tried visual basic editor back in school days and trust me it isnt a problem. Netbeans is incredibly buggy and the visual editor sucks. It has no comparison to MS VB graphic editor.

Well hated on sir

[beast]

Seems Eclipse is the obvious choice so I will be using that. I've started Eclipse and Java for Total Beginners video tutorial but it doesn't seem to get too far into the language. Would finishing that and then The Java™ Tutorials give me a good grasp of the language?