Edit the sources using the Netbeans IDE
Netbeans is the preferred java IDE to develop Openbravo POS because the Swing components of Openbravo POS has been developed with the visual editor of Netbeans and this edition is stored in *.form files that only Netbeans is able to interpret.
You can download Netbeans from http://www.netbeans.org. And there is a quick guide to develop with Netbeans here http://www.netbeans.org/kb/60/java/quickstart.html.
To create a new Netbeans project with the Openbravo sources, open Netbeans and select New project... to open the new project wizard, select Java Project with Existing Sources and press Next.
In the following step select the project name and the folder where the Netbeans project files will be stored and press Next. Do not select the same folder you downloaded or checked out the sources.
In the following step select the source folders. Add the folders locales, reports, src-beans, src-data, src-erp, and src-pos. In this step you can press Finish.
The next step is to add the libraries needed to build and execute Openbravo POS. Open the Properties... dialog of the project and in the libraries section add all the *.jar files of the folder lib.
Now you have ready a Netbeans project configured than you can edit, build and test. To execute and debug Openbravo POS you need also to select the main class of the project. Open the Properties... dialog and in the run section Openbravo select com.openbravo.pos.forms.StartPOS as the Main Class and press OK.
Edit the sources using the Eclipse IDE
If your favorite java IDE is Eclipse you can use it to develop Openbravo POS. You will only miss the visual edition of the swing components created with Netbeans. In this case you must take into account that if you modify the java code generated by Netbeans, then the Netbeans user will not have in sync your modifications and may overwrite it the next time.
You can download Eclipse from http://www.eclipse.org/. And there is a guide to develop with Eclipse here: http://www.eclipse.org/documentation/.
The Eclipse project files are included in the source packages. To create new Eclipse project is very easy, open Eclipse and select Import... to open the import project wizard, select Existing projects into workspace and press Next.
In the following step select the root folder of the Openbravo POS sources and press Finish.
Now you have ready your Eclipse project. To execute it, select the project run it as a Java application and select the com.openbravo.pos.forms.StartPOS as the main class.