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When the UI pops up a window for text entry, a text field appears to be selected but does not recognize keyboard entry. I've seen this happen on several windows. I'll describe the behavior for the most recent problem. Select Tools > Library Manager and click "New Library" The Library Name field is highlighted, but is not sensitive to keyboard input. The field can be highlighted using the mouse, but remains insensitive to keyboard input. I have to explicitly move the keyboard focus somewhere else (like to this window while typing this text) and back into that field for it to accept keyboard input. I'm running on Linux. If I'm connected via Reflection X on Wondows XP, the software behaves as described. If I'm using the "real" Linux console, the keyboard focus works as expected, and I can type into the selected field immediately.
You probably encountered an issue http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=50423 , a known problem with focus in dialog boxes on Linux. Actually, a JDK bug http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6183877 , now fixed for JDK 6.0. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 50423 ***