NetBeans is sluggish/unresponsive

On my 64bit Ubuntu 12.04 on an Intel Core i3 processor which has 16Gb RAM and a M4 SSD, NetBeans is very sluggish as well as the known problem where NetBeans does not use Ubuntu 12.04's global menu. That problem aside, why is NetBeans so slow, it's even slower than Eclipse!

Please have a look at this video: http://youtu.be/utLQD5Gpg0M

Look & Feel:

GTK+ and Java Swing Applications do not play well at all together when it comes to look and feel. I am afraid we'd have to wait for Java 8 for a proper fix.

For the time being, if you're not using Kubuntu but Ubuntu and Unity, you have to switch to the native look and feel which is Metal.

Go to your netbeans directory (ex: /home/user/netbeans7.2/etc) and open the file : netbeans.conf

then add the following line to netbeans options:

-J-Dswing.aatext=true -J-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd --laf Metal

Netbeans in Ubuntu 12.04 using Metal LAF

Source: http://hanynowsky.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/netbeans-ide-look-feel-under-ubuntu-12-04/

Global menus: Java Swing applications cannot benefit from Global menus integration for now. For the same reason: GTK/Swing implementations. Even Eclipse IDE is blacklisted for now even though it's SWT and not Swing based. Same goes for Emacs and Lotus notes. Nevertheless, you can activate Global Menu support for Java Swing applications by using Java Ayatana Library and for netbeans install the corresponding plugin : http://hanynowsky.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/integration-of-java-swing-applications-with-unity-global-menu-in-ubuntu-12-04/ By the way, it would be ideal if OpenJDK crowd include this same library in OpenJDK's next version so that Swing Application get support for Global Menu out of the box.

Slowliness: I use Netbeans IDE frequently on my machine and it's not slow at all compared to Eclipse. It might be an issue with the version packaged for Ubuntu Software Center (repos). I don't recommend it. Instead, download Netbeans 7.1.2 from Netbeans.org and install it locally on your home directory. You'll notice that it's faster than the version in repositories. Slowliness might also occur when you're using OpenJDK instead of Oracle JDK (Tested).

This seems to be a problem of the default Adwaita theme (and probably others as well). The gtkrc for GTK2 application causes problems to GTK LAF and prevents rendering separators and menu borders. Obviously, in some cases it may also cause UI sluggishness (even though I haven't experienced it)

By tweaking the gtkrc file I was able to resolve the problem.

================================================================================

Replace the following 3 style sections in the gtkrc :

style "menu" {
    xthickness = 1
    ythickness = 1

    bg[NORMAL]        = shade (1.08, @bg_color)

    engine "clearlooks" {
        radius = 0.4
    }
}

style "menu_item" {
    xthickness = 2
    ythickness = 3

    fg[PRELIGHT]      = @selected_fg_color
}

# This style is there to modify the separator menu items. The goals are:
# 1. Get a specific height.
# 2. The line should go to the edges (ie. no border at the left/right)
style "separator_menu_item" {
    xthickness = 1
    ythickness = 1

    GtkSeparatorMenuItem::horizontal-padding = 0
    GtkWidget::wide-separators = 1
    GtkWidget::separator-width = 1
    GtkWidget::separator-height = 7
}

I've just upgraded to Kubuntu 12.04 and there is no problem with NetBeans IDE what so ever. The reason my be that Kubuntu is KDE based distribution and NetBeans IDE is by default using Metal L&F.

In my opinion, you can improve your NetBeans experience under GTK by forcing it to use Metal L&F. The command line options is --laf Metal (or something like that).

NetBeans is sluggish/unresponsive

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