Java Swing technologies highlighted
561246
(InfoWorld) - A potpourri of Java client application technologies is on the agenda at the Desktop Matters conference in San Jose, Calif. on Friday, where the desktop gets top billing over the Web. Again dominating the discussion, as was the case on Thursday, are technologies pertaining to the Swing desktop client platform for Java. Presentations are featured on such projects as the Spring Rich Client Project, jMatter, and SwiXml. The desktop can be a better option than the Web in some circumstances, one attendee said. "For certain types of applications, desktop's the only way to go," said Rob Abbe, chief software architect at Captovation, which develops document capture software. He cited applications that need to interface with peripherals like high-speed scanners as an example. "The Web would be better [as a deployment choice] when the footprint needs to remain low [like] in situations where administrative policies would prevent people from installing desktop applications," Abbe said. One technology featured, the open-source Spring Rich Client Project, shares code with the popular Spring application framework for Java but is geared to rich client applications. "There are hundreds of major companies using this for very large and significant production applications," said Jim Moore, a consultant at Interface21, which oversees Spring technologies. The mission of the project is to provide an elegant way to build rich client applications that leverage the Spring framework, he said. The initial focus is support for Swing applications, according to the project's Web site. Another open-source project, jMatter, is built for developing applications for small businesses. It leverages Naked Objects Architectural Pattern, which presents new ideas on how to build applications, said Eitan Suez, author of jMatter and president of Uptodata. "I'm on a mission to get these ideas out," Suez said. "JMatter is a manifestation of these ideas and it's a framework that I think empowers the developers to focus on their customers' needs without having to worry or spend [an] inordinate amount of time on plumbing or framework or spending time building or maintaining the GUI."Â  Swing and the Hibernate object-relational persistence software are featured in jMatter. SwiXml is a GUI generating engine for Swing applications. GUIs are described in XML documents that are parsed at runtime and then rendered into javax.swing objects, according to the SwiXml Web site. SwiXml is used mostly for desktop applications. With SwixML, code is separated from the layout like with HTML, making for easier maintenance, said Wolf Paulus, developer of SwixML and a software architect at Cardiff. Another technology discussed, Canoo UltraLightClient, leverages Swing and a Web architecture. Application logic resides on the server rather than the client. A component-oriented programming model is leveraged. The UI is rendered in Swing rather than in HTML. "You get a much richer user experience," this way, said Etienne Studer, a developer at Navis who worked on development of the framework when he worked at Canoo. Now, he uses UltraLightClient. "It's like a better AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) then," said one audience member, responding to Studer's presentation.Â  Studer cited one application of UltraLightClientClient in which it is being used in a marine terminal operations system by shipping companies. Users have access to the same UI. Another topic slated for discussion at Desktop Matters on Friday is Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, which is the company's new presentation technology. Also on the agenda is Adobe Systems's Flex technology, for building rich Internet applications, and its Apollo software, for running Web applications off-line.
430830
JGraph is the most powerful, lightweight, feature-rich, and thoroughly documented open-source graph component available for Java. It is accompanied by JGraphpad, the first free diagram editor for Java that offers XML, Drag and Drop and much more!. JGraphpad 5.1.0 fixes a number of minor bugs, corrects the default behaviour for various functionality and introduces several new features. Of note, the image export functionality is improved, GPUserObjects have a number of fixes and jumping to ports behaviour has been corrected.   You can download this release here: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43118&package_id=65494
396345
Sandro Zic recently gave a presentation on Java and PHP, and posted his slides here. I didn't attend his talk, so I don't have all the facts, but I would like to comment on one of his slides [...]. First, a minor point. Limited or no OOP has rarely stopped any software from being enterprise-ready. Most modern operating systems continue to be written in C, and the large Cobol programs running on mainframes that manage your bank accounts and insurance do not use OOP. [...] Let's address some of his other criticisms: Virtually no multi-threading, Lack of maintenance tools, and Immature frameworks.
264364
(InfoWorld) - Even if text editors have been prominent in AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development, developers nonetheless would benefit from an IDE, panelists agreed at the EclipseCon 2007 conference on Wednesday. In a session entitled, "What Does Eclipse Need to Do to Become the IDE for AJAX?", panelists from companies such as IBM and Nexaweb said AJAX could use an IDE and that AJAX could benefit from Eclipse technologies. "I remember when Java first came out and all I used was a text editor," said panelist Robert Goodman, senior programmer at IBM. He said he did not like the first Java IDEs. But now, he could not go back to writing Java without one. "I think that's eventually what you'll get on JavaScript," Goodman said. Eclipse's own AJAX-related projects include the AJAX Toolkit Framework, for editing, compiling and debugging AJAX applications, and Rich AJAX Platform, serving as a runtime for AJAX applications. Panelists also cited issues in AJAX development. Detailing his own experience with AJAX complexity, panelist Coach Wei, CTO at Nexaweb, told of writing an AJAX application and running into trouble. Eventually, he found a problem related to a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file.Â  JavaScript now is being used to write large libraries, which was not anticipated, according to Goodman. "We haven't proven yet that you can really do this in JavaScript," Goodman said. Panelists noted that although AJAX can be difficult, it is still the way to go for desktop interaction in Web applications. "Definitely, the reason to do AJAX is for those sexy, dynamic Web apps," said Eric Clayberg, senior vice president of product development at Instantiations. Panelists supported consolidation in the area of AJAX runtimes, noting the existence of runtimes such as Dojo. An audience member emphasized that rather than devising new technologies, it may be a good idea to leverage what has already been done. "They should be standing on the shoulders of giants," said Hal Hildebrand, an architect in Oracle's Java platform group, after the session. AJAX is a new interface technology and lots of work already has been done in this area, he said. Another audience member, Kyle Shank, developer of the RadRails IDE for Ruby on Rails, cautioned against relying on a single framework for AJAX. "I would caution everyone who's interested in AJAX to not depend on one framework and actually write your apps in a way that [they] don't depend on one framework," Shank said. RadRails was built on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. Companies represented on the panel, such as Aptana, Instantiations, and Nexaweb, offer tools for AJAX developers. Also on Wednesday, EclipseCon featured a session where attendees could air gripes about Eclipse. Attendees expressed desires for improvements such as a native installer, which would tailor installations of Eclipse to suit the target platform. Nested projects support, enabling projects to be maintained within other projects, also got a thumbs-up. Improvements to Eclipse dialog capabilities and the Eclipse Graphical Editing Framework also were suggested. Scripting enhancements were requested as well, as was stronger support for the Subversion version control system. Others in the audience noted that work is being done in areas such as scripting. The Eclipse Monkey project is a dynamic scripting tool for automating routine programming tasks. One attendee said it is possible to create nested projects within Eclipse but there is no wizard for automating this function.
221284
Officials at Sun Microsystems, Javalobby, and Infravio this week revealed initiatives positioned as advances in either Java development or Web services consumption.
338017
(InfoWorld) - The Eclipse Foundation at the EclipseWorld 2006 conference in Cambridge, Mass., this week plans to tout the progress of open source projects focused on desktop application development, PHP (Hypertext Processor) and embedded Java. Honing in on a recent Evans Data survey that Eclipse and several member organizations funded, Eclipse will herald an annual growth rate of 130 percent in the number of respondents building applications based on Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform). The RCP is Eclipse's answer to the Windows juggernaut for development of desktop applications. Approximately 22 percent of the 400 respondents in this year's survey indicated they were building applications based on RCP. RCP features Equinox, which is a component framework based on the OSGi standard, and the ability to deploy native GUI applications to several desktop operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Also featured is an integrated update mechanism for deploying desktop applications from a central server. Although development of applications for the Web has been taking the headlines lately, rich client applications still have a place, said Mike Milinkovich, Eclipse executive director. There will always be a need for applications on the desktop that take advantage of local computing resources and can work in both disconnected and connected fashions. While RCP can be used for building Windows applications, Eclipse views it as a competitor to the Windows platform. "[RCP] has the additional advantage that you can take applications and run on Linux, Mac, and Windows, but we definitely see this as an alternative to Windows .Net," Milinkovich said. Organizations such as SAS Institute, NASA, and the US Army feature RCP in applications, he said. Eclipse also has a new project just getting started for rich Internet applications, called the Rich AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Platform project Also at the show, Eclipse plans to talk about upcoming developments such as the impending release of its PHP IDE project. "We are expecting our PHP tools project to be making [its] first release in Q4," Milinkovich said. "In Q4, we're expecting our Mobile Tools for Java project to be shipping and our embedded RCP project will be shipping as well," Milinkovich said. Mobile Tools for Java features a set of development tools for programmers building applications for mobile devices running Java. Embedded RCP is a runtime to extend the RCP to embedded devices. In the next few months, Eclipse plans maintenance releases to fix any bugs in its Callisto project, which was launched in June and featured the simultaneous release of 10 open source projects. The first maintenance release is on Sept. 29 while a second is planned for approximately Feb. 1, 2007. Also at EclipseWorld, Instantiations is announcing Version 2.0 of RCP Developer, which is a development tool for building Eclipse RCP applications. The new version adds a Help Composer feature, to ease documentation, and extends Linux support for the RCP Packager and WindowTester features. WindowTester feature automates testing of GUIs for Linux while RCP Packager streamlines the build and deployment process. Version 2.0 is centered on making it easier to focus on developing business logic rather than maintaining infrastructure code. Eclipse on Sept. 11, meanwhile, plans to have a creation review for the Eclipse Orbit Project. The project will provide a repository of bundled versions of third-party libraries that are approved for use in one or more Eclipse projects, according to the Eclipse Web site. Older versions of such libraries will be maintained by the repository as well. "One of the key issues with the current situation is the inconsistency in naming, versioning, and form of bundled third party libraries. This project will, as a mainline activity, provide a repository of approved and bundled third party libraries to authorized project teams. This eliminates duplicated work and bundle naming, structuring and versioning variations," the Eclipse site said. Also on Sept. 11, Eclipse will be reviewing its AspectJ Development Tools Project for aspect-oriented software development (AOSD), according to the organization's Web site. "The AspectJ Development Tools (AJDT) project provides Eclipse platform-based tool support for AOSD with AspectJ," the Eclipse site said.
43056
The Eclipse Project (who recently announced, in conjunction with Zend, the release of the PHP IDE PDT 1.0) are putting on a live webinar covering the software and its release.   This webinar will include a short history about the PHP Development Tools framework project, some statistical information (downloads, committers, bugs) and a demonstration of the project. The demonstration includes the different perspectives (PHP and PHP Debug) and the different views under each perspective. We will go through the creation of a PHP project, a PHP file and a debug session, where we will illustrate the debug features. During the presentation we will also see the relations to the WTP project which the PHP project is based on.   The event will be happening October 2nd (2007) at 9am PDT/12pm EDT/4pm GMT and will run about an hour. To attend, head to the event's page and click on the "Register" button on the right.
473364
Refreshing its development tools arsenal, Sun Microsystems on Tuesday revealed plans for upcoming versions of Java Studio Creator and is unleashing upgrades to the NetBeans open source platform and Java Studio Enterprise.
698404
(InfoWorld) - Now that Java is going open source, what exactly does that mean? Developers and others worldwide say it opens up a world of possibilities. New opportunities are presented on Linux as well as in the desktop and mobile spaces. Also, open source developers who might have shied away from Java because of its commercial implications now can jump in the pool. Sun unveiled plans to make Java open source available under the GNU General Public License on November 13. The move "has a huge impact on the open source world," said Jeff Waugh, director of the Gnome Foundation, which is building a desktop environment for open source and Unix systems. There has been a wall between Java and open source as far as desktop applications; the open sourcing means Java can spread on the desktop, said Waugh, in Sidney, Australia. "Now that Java will be open source, it means it will be able to be included in any Linux distribution by default," Waugh said. "That allows us to create desktop applications in Java," and distribute them with Linux, he said. Java now can vie with C and C++ on the desktop, Waugh said. Additionally, mobile application development becomes more Java-friendly, he said. "Given that Sun [is] also open-sourcing Java ME (Micro Edition), that allows Gnome developers to create Java applications that can work across the desktop and embedded devices," Waugh said. Open source Java also makes Java more competitive with Mono, which is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .Net development platform. Java becomes available to desktop developers such as Mono, Waugh said. "It will be interesting to see the lay of the land between Java and Mono," Waugh said. Open-source Java may even prompt the death of some projects. "It should make the Classpath project obsolete," said Casey Marshall, a contributor to the Classpath project, from Santa Cruz, Calif. Classpath is a GNU effort to write a free version of Java class libraries. "A lot of work that I've done could be relegated to the dust bin of history," Marshall said. But Marshall is not disappointed. "I don't think that personal glory is the ultimate goal of free software," he said. The Classpath project may be able to fill in some gaps on any class libraries that Sun cannot open because it does not own them, he added. An open source Java will bring new developers to the platform, said Dalibor Topic, a lead developer on the Kaffe project, which involves development of a free Java virtual machine. "I think it greatly boosts the perception of Java as a managed runtime technology in circles that wouldn't have considered Java as easily," because of the "Java trap," Topic said. The Java trap has involved an issue in which distribution of free software containing Java was hindered by Java's previous licensing terms. With open source Java, developers who did not have the opportunity to look at the source code now can do so, noted Topic, of Saarbrucken, Germany. By having Java available under the GPL, "it makes it possible to take your virtual machine and port it and include code from other applications that are open source or under the GPL," Topic said. Code can be exchanged with other projects, he added. Sun, however, may face an obstacle: its own culture, Topic said. "I think an interesting challenge is going to be to make sure that the culture within Sun that exists around the code base works well to this whole process of opening up," Topic said. Governance of Java, as far as dealing with contributions, also will need to be worked out, he said. A developer in Sao Paolo, Brazil who is a former Sun employee called the open source move a great step and one that was a long time coming. "I'm one of the people who have been asking for an open source Java implementation for quite some time," said developer Bruno Souza, who heads up the SouJava Java user group in Sao Paolo. Open source, Souza said, "is the best way to develop software and is the best way for people to use software." "It actually puts control of the software into the hands of the user," Souza said. If a vendor stops developing a piece of software, for instance, the community at large can take on that task in the open source paradigm, he said. The open source move means Java developers and others can partner with each other and distribute the results instead of just collaborating with Sun, Souza said. Souza listed a slew of potential projects that can be undertaken in the open source world. These could include an improved font rendering system and enhancements to the Swing UI, Souza said. Java also may be extended to new platforms and even to video games, he added. Application time issues can be resolved in the Java virtual machine and Java tools and documentation can be translated to new languages. An open source community integrated with other efforts must rise up for Java to reach its potential, Souza emphasized. "People think once it's open sourced, then magically it gets better. Thatâs not really true," he said. Although the community has been able to look at Java source code, now they can do more innovations and modify the code, said analyst Michael Cote of RedMonk. "Itâs pretty wide open at the moment," Cote said. "There's already several people who have been writing GPL versions for the VM (virtual machine)," he said, adding that new virtual machines might offer better performance and be easier to set up. A wider audience is now able to use and learn about Java, he said. "There's a lot of open source developers who aren't interested in developing in commercial platforms," Cote said. The GPL brings a lot of open source advocates in the mix, he said. As far as potential incompatibility issues that arising from the open sourcing, developers will be motivated to ensure compatibility, Cote said. Compatibility is a main advantage of the platform, Cote emphasized. "You don't have to have a bunch of if-then-else statements when you write to Java. You just write to Java," Cote said. Still, the possibility of forking exists. But incompatible implementations could not use the Java brand, Cote said. Despite the raves for the open-sourcing of Java in many corners, not everyone believes it will make all that much of a difference. Some chatters on the Javalobby.org site have expressed opinions in this vein. "I could care less if Java is open sourced or not. I'm waiting for the day I can wash my hands of the Java language altogether," said one chatter.Â  One poster griped about the design of Java. "Open sourcing Java won't clean the badly designed APIs," a chatter said. But another chatter applauded the GPL choice. "This also opens the field for broader contributions. Man, am I excited," one poster said. In choosing the GPL option, a surprising selection, Sun seeks to boost Java on the Linux platform, Sun's Rich Sands, community marketing manager for the Java Platform Standard Edition, concurred. Java also can be more easily spread in markets that prefer free, open source software, such as educational institutions and in the developing world, he said. "In looking at all those markets, we believe that the GPL is the best license to choose for facilitating adoption in those areas," Sands said.Â  Developers also can experiment with Java technologies such as the Java C compiler and Java HotSpot VM and port HotSpot to new platforms, Sands said. "Developers can learn how a world-class JVM is built, experiment with garbage collection, synchronization," and other components, Sands said. Sun looks to monetize Java by selling subscriptions to its commercial releases of Java, which feature customer support. Java also can be used to expand sales of Sun workstations and servers. Sun is not worried about incompatibility issues arising because the GPL requires that code changes be published. "It forces innovation into the open," Sands said. "There's really no market for an incompatible version of Java," Sands said.
1864
InfoWorld - SANTA CLARA, CALIF. -- Simplifying Java programming is on the minds of Java development executives at Sun, but making the language available via an open source format remains off the table, according to executives at a Sun &#8220;Chalk Talk&#8221; session here on Wednesday.
663391
Sun releases Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0, intended to make Java programs run faster and take less time to build.
563051
SANTA CLARA, CALIF. -- Simplifying Java programming is on the minds of Java development executives at Sun, but making the language available via an open source format remains off the table, according to executives at a Sun âChalk Talkâ session here on Wednesday.
357173
Application developers got several new options last week as Sun Microsystems updated J2SE, Borland upped its CORBA ante, and Compuware announced products that will work with Microsoftâs Visual Studio 2005 toolbox.
252256
Tiny, sensor-driven devices exposed A brainchild of Sun Microsystems' research wing, the Small Programmable Object Technology (Sun SPOT) platform code is now open to Java developers at large.â¦
376961
Dr. Internet recommends using IKVM tools to convert Java files into .Net applications or libraries.
550936
Sun exec: "If we want to keep Java relevant, we have to support this newer programming model."
96527
Marathon - Testing Framework version 0.90 is released. This is a minor feature enhancement and bug-fix release. The details of changes can be found in ChangeLog. Marathon is a testing framework for GUI applications developed using Java/Swing. Marathon composes of recorder, runner and editor. The testscripts are composed of python code. Marathon focuses on end-user testing. One need not know Java or Swing to record test scripts using Marathon. Marthon is kept intentionally simple. The aim to produce test scripts that are readable by everyone on the project. This includes the developers, testers and the customers. Marathon is flexible and provides facilities to extend the functionality available through python scripts or through writing ones own component resolvers.    The latest release can be found here:  https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=46616&package_id=54685