Ok, basicly im working at home and often in my school computer’s lab. At home i use JCreator, but the computer lab only got NetBeans which is total overkill. Whenever i want to compile something it asks me to create a project with 1000 fields i have to fill out and then it creates 1,000,000 folders with useless stuff in it, and it wont run or compile a ****… An easier workaround is to copy the entire JDK derictory and use command line. But that too takes a long time. So what i need is a small IDE that i dont have to install (actually i cant install anything on my school’s computer), preferably a JAR under 5MB. What i need it to do is to compile .java files and run them. Of course im asking a lot since the only IDE that can compile and run properly is JCreator, but there must be something else out there that is more portable and doesnt require creation of projects, enterprises or what not…
The closest thing i found was Jipe. Of course it has an atrocious editor and its compiler is stupid (it can compile nothing if its super-derictory contains spaces), but if the super-derictories dont have spaces it compiles fine. Yet it wont run (so every time i gotta drop those classes in an executable JAR and deploy the jar instead). There gotta be an easier way to compile .java files into .class files and run them, which is all i need.
Perhaps you just need to become familiar with using a powerful IDE such as Netbeans, Intellij, or Eclipse?
While I have little experience of the former 2, I can say it takes at most 20 seconds to have a standard Eclipse project setup, and the code running with debugger attached.
Obviously eclipse is closer to 80mb, rather than 5mb… but does size realy matter?
£20($40) gets you a fast 4gb usb flash drive nowadays - enough space to have an entire virtual pc & OS installed, along with any modest applications you need. (excluding bloatware such as M$ office)
just use netbeans for christ’s sake - it’s will do the job just fine. Creating a project in it does NOT ask for 1000’s of fields at all:
(1) Click new project
(2) Select java application (the default)
(3) Type in a project name.
Done!
How hard is that???
I dont work with projects, i work with classes. I have a folder saved on my flash drive which contains .java files with folders of music and images. I dont think NetBeans or Eclipse can do what i need, i. e. compile those files in one click.
If someone has a small portable IDE, please share… 
Eclipse:
new->project->enter “Project name:”
“create project from existing source”->point it at the folder above your src folder.
It will automatically detect which sub-folders contain source.
Finish up.
Hey presto, you have compiled code.
Eclipse has an automatic background compiler, (under normal operation) there is no ‘compile’ button.
To run the program select the class containing ‘main’, right click->run as->java application.
Just start using Netbeans at home. Then you can just copy the entire project folder and take it back and forth.
Haven’t used it and looks butt ugly, but from the feature list it seems to match your requirements: http://snowmail.sn.funpic.de/tide/
So work with projects. Do you have some kind of religious objection to them, or something?
you can also stay tuned with your notepad while compiling with the convenience command line tool javac. But if you have more resources to manage with the .class files, you better try with ANT and a build.xml file. 
[quote]So work with projects. Do you have some kind of religious objection to them, or something?
[/quote]
Its just much easier to work with plain .java files.
Anyways, i installed JCreator on my flash drive (didnt know if it would work, but i tried anyways) and it works great.
Sorry for my noobiness. ;D