I downloaded and installed the latest SDK, “SDK Release 3.3”, using jmonkeyplatform-windows-x64.exe, and got jMonkeyEngine SDK v3.3.0-stable. I created the JME3 > BasicGame application and it worked.
I located the latest Engine, “jMonkeyEngine 3.4.0-stable”, as “jME3.4.0-stable.zip”.
Can/How-would I upgrade my JME SDK 3.3 to 3.4? Do I just unzip over it? I want to get the JavaDocs for the JME libraries so I can see the API documentation as I’m coding.
The easiest way is to switch to Gradle instead of the classical ANT project. You’ll thank me later. Far more easier to handle. That also makes the version switching really easy. One just configures the version number into gradle.build file. Otherwise you need to download JARs manually and basically do what you just described.
With Gradle you also need to (in Netbeans / SDK) initiate the source and/or javadoc download manually once you got the project going. On your project tree there will be an item called “Configurations”, right-click it and select “download xxx”.
If only I’d read this before the other thread! 
I would like to use version 3.4.1-stable with the SDK using this method. Is this possible? Part of me is thinking no or this would have been done in the latest release but I have to ask.
For reasons even I don’t understand, the SDK hasn’t been updated since 3.3.
However, if you build your project using Gradle instead of Ant, it’s certainly possible to create 3.4.1 applications using the 3.3 SDK. (I’m doing so using the 3.2 SDK!)
The main risk would be that tools like the scene composer might not work.
How would I do that? Is this project specific or is there a global setting to switch to gradle?
So I think I managed to create a gradle game project. Not sure if I need to add the implementations manually or if the SDK does that when they are referenced in code. I am coming from using the engine to the SDK mainly for the model converter so I appreciate your help.
To start a Gradle-built project in the 3.3 SDK, all you need is a good template.
You could copy an existing project such as BasicGame-on-Gradle or CrossPlatformModule.
Back in October, @richtea was working on a web form where you would answer a few questions and get back a Gradle build script. I wonder whatever happened to that…
Ok that would be handy. I am used to adding implementations manually so no big deal, but nice to know that someone is working on it. It seems strange that the SDK is always lagging behind the most recent stable version of the engine.
I like using the most stable version and some of the features of the SDK are nice so I might make a youtube video on this. Jmonkey is a really nice engine and I want to raise awareness and possibly contribute to the code myself.
It seems strange that the SDK is always lagging behind the most recent stable version of the engine.
True, and I don’t know the root cause of this strange situation.
What sustains it (I believe) is the attitude that JMonkeyEngine is a “programmer’s engine”, and programmers (some of us, at least) are reluctant to use (say) a Netbeans-based SDK once we’ve gotten used to (say) IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse.
Another challenge we face is fewer contributors, relative to what we had in 2015. Your willingness to contribute has been noted! When you’re ready to get involved, let me know.
Thanks, I will. For me as an end user I think the biggest frustration is the lack of recent documentation, tutorials, discussions, etc. I if do an internet search for something and get a hit on the forums (even if it is from 2015), most of the time the page is a broken link. There are maybe 2 tutorial videos on youtube and so people that might have used it assume it is dead and move on. I am glad that I stuck it out and I have learned best practices that I could share that would make getting started with the engine a lot easier.
Yeah, SDK receives so limited amount of love from both, of its users and its devs. So limited that I am afraid it will join a street gang and starts doing drugs and crimes.
Yep this. And we have failed to produce a game chancing feature for it. But even with such, it will be probably started only to use the feature.
Whatever the reasons are. There is this annoying bug with the Gradle template the latest SDK offers. And the lack of ANT support for recent jME releases. Although the latter was going to be removed anyway if I understood correctly. That would kinda end the race for having a forced SDK release whenever a jME release happens.
It would be nice to get that fixed and an update to Netbeans 13 LTS (if it is as NB people planned, February 2022). To get improvements from 2 years time, such as support for new tooling versions. Like Java 17.
I was waiting for an api on the jmonkey store to pull 3rd party jmonkey libraries from. But actually I’ve been “letting perfect be the enemy of good”, I’ll try to finish it off with just a hard coded list of libraries, probably after I finish trying to modernise jmonkey’s VR.
In the meantime there is an alpha version JME initialiser at http://jmeinitializer.onemillionworlds.com/ (its generated templates are only really sensible for desktop applications though)