Release Candidate 1 of version 7.3 of NetBeans, the free open source IDE for Java, and also for PHP, C/C++ and other languages, is now available for download.

As we noted when the beta was released,  the highlight of this version is the integration of Project Easel, the HTML5 application development environment which significantly improves the JavaScript editor and adds a JavaScript debugger, HTML5 page inspector and visual CSS style editor. Easel is built around an embedded Webkit browser but can also integrate with Google's Chrome browser.

The new project type optimized for developing client web applications can be found in the New Project wizard in the"HTML/JavaScript" category:

Other improvements in 7.3 include a new breadcrumb navigation bar, improved show member and hierarchy views, added hints and refactorings, the ability to filter the Find Usages results and an "effective" POM editor tab for Maven pom.xml files. A Java Persistence (JPQL) testing tool has been introduced and there are enhancements to the REST Service development process.

There is full support of JavaFX 2.2.4 SDK including FXML/Scene Builder FXML editing is also improved with accurate code completion and error marking.

The release notes also list: Java SE Development Kit 7 Update 10 support and support for JavaME SDK 3.2.