Eclipse

Eclipse is a very popular tool among Java developers, and if you are used to it, you might prefer to use Eclipse for Tapestry development too.

There are a number of sources explaining how to set up Eclipse for building Tapestry applications. One of them is the book by Kent Tong (http://agileskills2.org/EWDT/index.html) which I have already mentioned in the previous article. You will find detailed instructions on downloading and installing everything in the freely available first chapter of this book.

However, Kent Tong uses a "bare bones" Eclipse, while I find the Eclipse Web Tools Platform more convenient to use for Web development. You can find detailed instructions on how to configure Eclipse WTP for working with Tapestry at the Tapestry Wiki website (http://wiki.apache.org/tapestry/HowToSetupEclipseWtp).

NetBeans

One of the benefits of using NetBeans for this tutorial is that you don't need to bother downloading and wiring together different pieces of software. In fact, you might have already installed everything you need in the previous section if you chose JDK + NetBeans package.

If not, go to the NetBeans website (http://www.netbeans.info/downloads) and download the IDE for your platform (it is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris). Then install NetBeans following the available instructions with all default options.

Servlet Container (Tomcat)

Hmm... Almost nothing to write here. If you are using Eclipse, you will find out how to download and install Tomcat following the links given above. If you've installed NetBeans however, you already have Tomcat bundled with it.

So let's go on.