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If Netbeans’ keyboard shortcut for fixing import statements (or any other shortcut) stops working, it could be the KDE global shortcuts daemon interfering¹². Per default, Ctrl+Shift+I is bound to Kopete’s read message function, so if Kopete runs in background, Netbeans doesn’t catch the shortcut. Quick Fix: Close Kopete or simply remove the global shortcut.

To check, if the kdedglobalaccel daemon uses Ctrl+Shift+I, simply use

$ grep -i ctrl+shift+i ~/.kde/share/config/kglobalshortcutsrc
ReadMessage=Ctrl+Shift+I,Ctrl+Shift+I,Read Message

You can either just remove the line from ~/.kde/share/config/kglobalshortcutsrc, use KDE’s System Settings tool (System Settings → Shortcuts and Gestures → Global Keyboard Shortcuts → KDE component: Kopete → Read Message)

System Settings: Change "Read Message" to "None" (click for full size image)

or unset the shortcut in Kopete itself (Kopete → Settings → Configure Shortcuts → Read Message)

Kopete: Change "Read Message" to "None" (click for full size image)

[1] http://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=117058
[2] http://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=187776

Netbeans’ GUI builder is great. It’s one of the essential features that made me drop eclipse.

But designing accurate GUIs can be a pain in the arse. Especially, when you use the GUI builder with a certain preview Look and Feel (e.g. GTK+) but you application later runs with a completely different L’n'F (e.g. Nimbus). It’s almost certain, that your design will look rather ugly. Unless you want to design your GUI manually (which isn’t a bad idea, btw.), you have to make sure, your design preview and application match.

While changing the L’n'F in your application is quite simple, changing Netbeans’ L’n'F (and therefore the GUI builder’s L’n'F ) is rather tricky. The easiest way is probaly the --laf flag:

$ netbeans --laf Nimbus

If you want to start Netbeans in Nimbus-mode per default, just add --laf Nimbus to netbeans_default_options in ~/.netbeans/6.5/etc/netbeans.conf.

If the file doesn’t yet exists

mkdir -p ~/.netbeans/6.5/etc/ 
echo netbeans_default_options=\"--laf Nimbus\" >> ~/.netbeans/6.5/etc/netbeans.conf