So you want to start creating cool web applications in Java? Well, you've come to the right place. Vaadin is a mature, powerful Java framework to build modern web applications leveraging your Java programming skills, and understanding of concepts such as listeners, components, and other well-known constructions acquired from the desktop APIs such as Swing and AWT.

First things first. Downloading, installing, and configuring your development environment are the first steps to get started with Vaadin. In this chapter we will cover the following topics:

We will cover the details of configuring your development environment using Eclipse, NetBeans, and Maven. Feel free to jump straight to the section explaining your favorite IDE and skip those covering the other ones.

Let's get our hands dirty!