NetBeans is a modular development environment that is primarily intended to be used to develop Java applications. The Alice team has created a NetBeans library that allows you to develop or extend Alice worlds directly in the NetBeans environment. This allows you to load saved worlds developed in the Alice 3 platform and continue to modify them directly in the Java code. We have also created lessons and exercises to take advantage of a more mediated transfer approach to learning that replicates projects in Alice in Java code applying the learning from Alice into intro Java exercises and back again.

Download NetBeans and Java JDK

Apache NetBeans is free and open source and is governed by the Apache Software Foundation. Please visit their site to find download and installation instructions for the NetBeans IDE.

We have successfully installed and used our plugin on NetBeans versions up to 14 but please let us know if you have any problems.

Get NetBeans IDE

To run NetBeans you will also need the Java 17 or 18 JDK. You can download this from Oracle.

Java JDK

Alice NetBeans Plugin
To use NetBeans with Alice 3 you will need to download and install the Alice plugin for NetBeans. It is important to note that the version of the plugin needs to match the version of Alice 3 you are exporting the world from to be sure it will be compatible. You can update Alice 3 and download the newest plugin or find the compatible plugin for older versions of Alice in the archives section below. Be sure to follow the accompanying how-to directions for installing the Alice Plugin in NetBeans.