July 2002 Java News

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

I'm traveling for the next few days. There probably won't be any updates until I get back on Monday.


The Jakarta Apache Project has posted the first beta of Cactus 1.4, an open source unit testing framework for testing server side Java code (servlets, Enterprise JavaBeans, Tag Libraries, Filters, etc.) based on JUnit.


ISNetworks S/MIME library adds S/MIME Cryptographic functions to the Java Mail API including digital signing, signature verification, encryption, and decryption. It is $1000 payware.


Bungisoft has released RedBase 1.5, a $495 payware Pure Java SQL-92 database designed for mobile and embedded devices. It supports JDBC. This is derived (possibly copied?) from the open source HSQL database engine.


Frederic Lavigne posted version 1.2.3 of his Skin Look And Feel for Java SkinLF allows Java developers to use Skins (GTK and KDE themes) in their Swing applications. This release fixes a few bugs. Java 2 is required.


OpenEJB 0.8 has been released. This is an open source Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) Container System and EJB Server. It includes EJB Servers for both local and remote access.

Monday, July 29, 2002

Brendan Macmillan's Java Serialization for XML (JSX) 1.0.3.1 claims to allow "all objects to be written and read as XML, using Java's standard Serialization API. Objects from your present application version can be migrated to the next version, despite class evolution, by processing the XML with XSLT, SAX, DOM, or JDOM. Unlike java.beans.XMLEncoder/XMLDecoder, JAXB, and Castor, JSX works for all objects." It seems to work by chaining to an ObjectInputStream/ObjectOutputStream and converting the binary serialization to XML. It's a really neat hack. JSX is published under the GPL.

Sunday, July 28, 2002

The BlackDown Project has posted a beta version if its Java 2 Standard Edition for Linux 1.4.1 for Linux. This is a free-beer, closed source VM based on Sun source code.

The BlackDown Project has also released the first stable version of the  Blackdown Java3D for Linux 1.3. This is a free-beer, closed source Linux implementation of the Java 3D. It uses the OpenGL low-level API to take advantage of 3D hardware acceleration.


Version 3.1.1 of GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, has been released. GCC contains frontends for C, C++, Objective C, Chill, Fortran, and Java as well as libraries for these languages. This release should significantly speed up Java compilation.


JDebugTool 1.5.6 is a standalone graphical Java debugger built on top of the Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA). Version 1.5.6 fixes a few bugs. JDebugTool is $99 payware.

Saturday, July 27, 2002

Sun's posted draft 0.11 of Java Specification Request 141, Session Description Protocol (SDP) API in the Java Community Process (JCP) for public review. SDP is an IETF protocol used on the MBone for multicasting.

Friday, July 26, 2002

The Jakarta Apache Project has posted the first beta of Commons Lang, a library of core Java functionality that enhances classes in and around java.lang. It includes a host of String manipulation methods, a nestable exception structure that works in pre 1-4 VMs, basic numerical methods and object reflection, creation and serialization helpers. According to the release notes, "It is important to note that this is not a traditional beta, a piece of code thrown out with many bugs remaining. It is a beta because additional classes are expected to be added before a full release, but the classes contained in this release are not expected to change."


Apple's released the QuickTime for Java 6.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) for Mac and Windows.

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Eric Lafortune's ProGuard 1.1 is a GPL'd class file shrinker and obfuscator. It can detect and remove unused classes, fields, methods, and attributes. It can then rename the remaining classes, fields, and methods using short, meaningless names. The resulting jars are more compact and more difficult to reverse-engineer.


Andrew Sorensen and Andrew Brown's jMusic 1.3 is an open source "library of classes for generating and manipulating music and audio, jMusic provides a solid framework for computer-assisted composition in Java. jMusic supports composers by providing a music data structure based upon note/sound events, methods for analysing and working with that musical data, and the ability to render your music as real-time playback or to files for storage or later processing. jMusic can read and write MIDI files, audio files, XML files, and its own .jm files. jMusic is designed to be extendible, encouraging you to build upon its functionality by programming in Java to create your own musical compositions, tools, and instruments. jMusic is 100% Java and works on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Solaris, or any other platform with Java support. "


Matthew Pekar's Pounder 0.91 is a GUI testing tool for Java. Developers can record scripts that are then run in JUnit. Java 1.4 is required. Pounder is released under the LGPL.


Version 1.0.6 of AspectJ, a compiler that adds support for aspect-oriented programming to Java, has been released. Aspect-oriented programming allows programmers to write code that cuts across multiple classes and methods. Version 1.0.6 adds support for JBuilder 7 and fixes a few bugs.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

Unisys has released the final version of Java Specification Request (JSR) 40, the Java Metadata Interface Specification in PDF format. According to the spec,

The Java™ Metadata Interface (JMI) Specification defines a dynamic, platform-neutral infrastructure that enables the creation, storage, access, discovery, and exchange of metadata. JMI is based on the Meta Object Facility (MOF) specification from the Object Management Group (OMG), an industry-endorsed standard for metadata management. The MOF standard provides an open-ended information modeling capability, and consists of a base set of metamodeling constructs used to describe technologies and application domains, and a mapping of those constructs to CORBA IDL (Interface Definition Language) for automatically generating model-specific APIs. The MOF also defines a reflective programming capability that allows for applications to query a model at run time to determine the structure and semantics of the modeled system. JMI defines a Java mapping for the MOF.

JMI is based on the Meta Object Facility (MOF) specification from the Object Management Group (OMG), an industry-endorsed standard for metadata management. The MOF standard provides an open-ended information modeling capability, and consists of a base set of metamodeling constructs used to describe technologies and application domains, and a mapping of those constructs to CORBA IDL (Interface Definition Language) for automatically generating model-specific APIs. The MOF also defines a reflective programming capability that allows for applications to query a model at run time to determine the structure and semantics of the modeled system. JMI defines a Java mapping for the MOF.

A reference implementation is also available, but registration is required.


The JSR-77 expert group has released the J2EE Management specification. "It includes standard mappings of the model to the Common Information Model (CIM), an SNMP Management Information Base (MIB), and to the Java object model through a server resident Enterprise JavaBeans™ (EJB™) component, known as the J2EE Management EJB Component (MEJB). The MEJB provides interoperable remote access to the model from any standard J2EE application.

The J2EE Management Reference Implementation integrates the J2EE management functionalityinto the Sun ONE Studio 3.0 "to provide a tool for managing any J2EE application on any J2EE server that has implemented the J2EE Management interfaces." This release supports the Solaris/SPARC, Windows NT/2000, and Red Hat Linux.


The JSR-88 expert group has released the J2EE Application Deployment specification. This "defines standard APIs to enable a deployment of J2EE components and applications. It is intended to enable the development of platform-independent deployment tools. The J2EE Deployment Specification can be implemented as an extension to the J2EE 1.3 platform and will be a required component of the J2EE 1.4 platform." The reference implementation supports Solaris, Windows, and Linux.


Sun's posted the proposed final draft specification for JSR-120, the Wireless Messaging API, in the Java Community Process. (PDF format only.) This defines optional APIs for wireless communication to enable 3rd party developers to build "intelligent connected Java applications" that run on Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME).


Sun's also posted the proposed final draft specification of JSR-62, Personal Profile Specification. This defines a J2ME profile for "devices with a need for a high degree of Internet connectivity and web fidelity."


The proposed final draft spec of JSR-135 Mobile Media API has also been posted. This is a small-footprint multimedia API for J2ME that provides basic audio and multimedia support.


Hyperion Solutions Corporation has posted a second public review draft of JSR-69 Java OLAP Interface (JOLAP). JOLAP is a vendor-independent, pure Java API for J2EE that supports the creation and maintenance of Online Analytical Processing data and metadata. Comments are due by August 22.

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Sun's posted an early access release of Java Server Pages 2.0 on the Java Developer Connection (registration required). This amounts to a custom version of TomCat 4.1 that implements version 2.3 of the Java Servlet API 2.3 and some (but not all) of the new features in JSP 2.0. Java 1.4 is required. It implements that new JSP 2.0 APIs, Integrated Expression Language Support, the <jsp:attribute> and <jsp:body> standard actions, and new SimpleTag Handlers and JSP Fragments. It does not yet support JSR-45 Debugging, tag files, or attributes with dynamic names.


The JXTA Project has posted build 65e of the JXTA Platform. JXTA is an open source Java environment for creating peer-to-peer applications.


leJOS 2.0.0 is an open source, Java-based replacement firmware (OS) for the Lego Mindstorms RCX. leJOS supports threads, exceptions, synchronization, floating point arithmetic, and strings. Garbage collection is not supported though. New features in 2.0 include more available memory without motor twitching, USB Mac OS X support, faster Math functions, and an improved communications package that enables programs communicate with multiple RCXs, use a variety of protocols (including LNP), and even serve Web pages directly from the RCX.


The Object Refinery has posted JFreeReport 0.7.5, an open source Java class library for generating reports that outputs PDF. Java 1.3 or later is required. JFreeReport is published under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL).


Ernest Friedman-Hill's  Jess 6.1a3 "is a rule engine and scripting environment written entirely in Java. It was originally inspired by the CLIPS expert system shell, but has grown into a complete, distinct Java-influenced environment of its own. Using Jess, you can build Java applets and applications that have the capacity to 'reason' using knowledge you supply in the form of declarative rules. Jess is free for academic use."

Monday, July 22, 2002

JDebugTool 1.5.5 is a $99 payware standalone graphical Java debugger built on top of the Java Platform Debugging Architecture (JPDA).

Sunday, July 21, 2002

Teodor Danciu's  JasperReports 0.3.3  is an open source Java library for generating reports from XML templates and customizable data sources (including JDBC). The output can be displayed on the screen, printed, or written to XML or PDF files. JasperReports is published under the LGPL.


Tomek Zielinski's drawboard 0.75  is a white board implemented as a Java applet. It's published under the LGPL.


Ake Wallebom's  Java WebSuck 0.73 "goes through the web-pages you specify and checks for links and data files. The links are followed, and the data files are output in the format of your choice (plain text or GetRight format!). The program is best suited for downloading web galleries with large amounts of photos." It has a Swing GUI and a console mode. Just the thing for


Sun's released the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) Wireless Toolkit 1.0.4. According to the web page, this "is a set of tools that provides application developers with the emulation environment, documentation and examples needed to develop Java technology applications targeted at CLDC/MIDP compliant mobile phones and entry level PDAs. This product is based on the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) 1.0.3 and Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) 1.0.3 reference implementations, and can be tightly integrated with third party IDEs such as SunTM ONE Studio (formerly Forte for Java) , providing a complete development environment with which developers can write, test and debug applications from start to finish." Java 1.3 or later on Solaris, Linux, or Windows is required.

Saturday, July 20, 2002

 ej-technologies GmbH's JProfiler 2.0.3 is a $548 payware profiler based on the Java virtual machine profiling interface (JVMPI that can report on CPU usage, memory size, threads, and "VM telemetry" (whatever that is). Version 2.0 adds snapshot saving and loading, monitor contention analysis, thread state selection in CPU views, integrated source and bytecode viewers, J2EE integration wizards, package level statistics, dynamic view filters, improved garbage collector functionality and data export capabilities.


Alex Muc's JSP Documentation Generator is a tool for generating JavaDoc-style documentation from a directory containing Java Server Page files.


IBM's alphaWorks has updated RBManager, a tool that automates many of the tedious tasks associated with creating, updating, and managing resource bundle files. Version 0.6 was released only because the previous version had an expiration date that recently expired.

Friday, July 19, 2002

I went to MacWorld Expo NY yesterday. It was definitely the most boring one in memory. For the first time I won't be going back for a second day. There was limited new hardware from Apple, just a new iPod with a bigger hard drive and an iMac with a widescreen flat-panel display, certainly nothing revolutionary. Third parties had very little new or exciting to show either. It was certainly the smallest MacWorld I've ever been to, though that's been true of most shows lately. It's hardly unique to MacWorld.

Most of the emphasis was on the upcoming upgrade to MacOS X called Jaguar. The big hope is that this release will finally make MacOS X fast enough to actually use. I'm skeptical. It may also increase the list of supported hardware, particularly scanners. A lot of people, myself included, have not upgraded to MacOS X yet because it can't run our large collections of third party hardware, and we don't much feel like junking it all to replace it with more expensive Apple branded equipment. Jaguar will cost $129 flat. There's no upgrade price available so everyone who's helped Apple out by doing what amounts to beta testing the last several versions will have to pay again.

As the final "Fuck you" to loyal Mac users, Steve Jobs completely reneged on promises made at previous MacWorlds of a free mac.com e-mail address for life. Anyone who trusted him is now stuck with the prospect of either changing their e-mail address or paying $100 a year to Apple to keep their old e-mail address. It smells like a class-action lawsuit to me, except that most class-action lawyers are equivalent scum who rake in big fees while sending coupons to the people they're supposed to be representing. Perhaps there's a state attorney general somewhere who'd be willing to look into this.


Sun Microsystems announced its fiscal results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002 yesterday. Net income was $20 million on revenue of $3.4 billion. The income works out to just about $0.01 per share. Revenue was up 10 percent from the third quarter, but down 14 percent from this quarter last year.

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Greg Guerin's updated his open source MacBinary Toolkit for Java. MacBinary is a format used to squash a two fork Macintosh file into a single byte sequence. This release "improves some of the MacBinary encoder/decoder classes, adds a pair of simplified encode/decode classes, and cleans up some other things. The I/O layers are almost unchanged." There are some new sample programs too.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

Brendan Macmillan's Java Serialization for XML (JSX) 1.0.2.0 claims to allow "all objects to be written and read as XML, using Java's standard Serialization API. Objects from your present application version can be migrated to the next version, despite class evolution, by processing the XML with XSLT, SAX, DOM, or JDOM. Unlike java.beans.XMLEncoder/Decoder, JAXB, and Castor, JSX works for all objects." It seems to work by chaining to an ObjectInputStream/ObjectOutputStream and converting the binary serialization to XML. It's a really neat hack. JSX is published under the GPL.


Lorenzo Bettini's released GNU Source-highlight 1.5, a GPL'd tool for reading Java, C/C++, Prolog, Perl, PHP3, and Python code and translating them into syntax highlighted HTML and XHTML. Binaries are available for Unix, and it should compile on Windows with the appropriate libraries.


The LGPL'd Hibernate is an object/relational persistence and query service for Java based on reflection. It lets you develop persistent objects following common Java idiom, including composition, association, inheritance, polymorphism, and the Java collections framework. It supports Oracle, DB2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Sybase, Interbase, Microsoft SQL Server, Mckoi SQL, Progress, SAP DB, and HypersonicSQL.


Jeff Pace's released version 3.3.5 of DoctorJ, an LGPL'd Linux application written in C++ that analyzes Java source code in three areas:

This release fixes a few bugs.


Sun's posted an early access release of the Mobile Media API Emulator (MMAPI) for the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) Wireless Toolkit on the Java Developer Connection (registration required). MMAPI adds audio, video and other time-based multimedia support to small devices like cell phones.


Tira Wireless has submitted Java Specification Request 190 (JSR-190) Event Tracking API for J2ME. This proposes:

an optional package that will standardize the tracking of application events on a mobile device and the submission of these event records to an event-tracking server via a standard protocol. The events will be used for purposes such as billing, usage tracking, application revocation, update notification, reviews and ratings, high-scores etc.

The API/protocol shall work with devices supporting CLDC 1.0 and up. It is designed as an optional package that can be used with many J2ME profiles, in particular MIDP 1.0 and up. As a result, the protocol between the mobile device and the event-tracking server is expected to be HTTP based, which is the only mandatory transport protocol defined in MIDP 1.0 (HTTPS shall be preferred for MIDP 2.0).

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

Sun's posted the proposed final draft specification for JSR-112 J2EE Connector Architecture 1.5 in the Java Community Process. New features since 1.0 include asynchronous integration with enterprise information systems and Java Message Service (JMS) provider pluggability.

Monday, July 15, 2002

Nathan Fiedler's JSwat 2.7 is a graphical, stand-alone Java debugger built on top of the Java Platform Debugger Architecture. Features include breakpoints, source code viewing, single-stepping, watching variables, viewing stack frames, and printing variables. Version 2.7 adds a popup menu to the threads panel for suspending, resuming, and interrupting threads, and regular expression support for some commands, and various user interface improvements. JSwat is published under the GPL.


Neurotech's Java Financial Library 1.5 is an LGPL'd library that converts between currencies and retrieves stock information from Yahoo and Oanda.

Sunday, July 14, 2002

Sun's released version 1.3 of the Java 3D API implementation for Windows and Solaris. "The Java 3D API enables the creation of three-dimensional graphics applications and Internet-based 3D applets. It provides high-level constructs for creating and manipulation 3D geometry and building the structures used in rendering that geometry." As well as many bug fixes, Sun lists the following new features:

New rendering functionality:
  • ViewSpecificGroup: Support for per-view objects
  • Ability to scale background images
  • Changes in semantics of background geometry
  • Behavior synchronization
  • Scale invariant OrientedShape3D
  • OrderedGroup indirection table

New geometry functionality:

  • Raster destination pixel offset
  • GeometryArray enhancements
  • NIO Buffer Support for Geometry

New texture functionality:

  • TexCoord4f object to support projective textures
  • Texture LOD control
  • Ability to modify ImageComponent subimage
  • Support for texture boundary
  • Texture environment combiner support
  • Texture cube environment mapping
  • Additional texture filtering options

New appearance functionality:

  • Depth-sorted transparency
  • Ability to choose color target for per-vertex colors

New audio functionality:

  • New reverb and environmental parameters

Other new functionality:

  • Cloneable vecmath classes
  • Ability to pause alpha-based interpolators
  • Method to get global properties
  • New J3DGraphics2D draw and flush image method
  • New capability frequency hints

API cleanup:

  • Font3D object reparented to NodeComponent
  • New IllegalSceneGraphException class
  • New TransformInterpolator class
  • New picking intersect method
  • Added missing get methods
  • Added missing capability bits
  • Added missing collection-like methods
  • Increased ability to share NodeComponents
  • Hierarchical scoping of compiled Group nodes
  • Fix semantic problems with Sensor hotspot
Friday, July 12, 2002

Jeff Pace's DoctorJ 3.3.3 is an LGPL'd Linux application written in C++ that analyzes Java source code in three areas:

  • documentation verification
  • statistics generation
  • syntax analysis

Documentation Verification. Beyond the level of what Javadoc does, DoctorJ compares documentation against code. Among what it detects:

  • missing, misordered and/or misspelled parameter and exception names
  • invalid or misspelled Javadoc tags
  • misordered Javadoc tags
  • missing arguments for Javadoc tags
  • missing descriptions for Javadoc tags
  • invalid arguments for Javadoc tags
  • undocumented classes, methods, fields, parameters

Statistics Generation. Outputs the following statistics:

  • number of lines of code
    • project total
    • total, mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum in methods and classes
  • number of methods, fields, and classes
  • number of import statements

Syntax Analysis. (In development, and highly unstable.) Inspired by lint, currently finds:

  • violation of naming standards (customizable)
  • public non-static data (fields)
  • no default case in switch statement
  • case statement ending without break
  • misordered modifiers
  • overly general usage of exceptions
  • excessively long methods
  • empty if/while statements
  • abstract modifier with interface

Keith Long's Java Gantt Chart 0.3.2 is an LGPL'd Gantt chart package for Java.

Thursday, July 11, 2002

The Jakarta Apache Project has released version 1.5 of Ant, the popular open source build tool for Java. Version 1.5 improves support for JDK 1.4 and adds support for Netware. Ant 1.5 can create bzip2 archives and MD5 checksums via built-in tasks, prompt for user input, and replace text based on regular expressions. There are lots of other bug fixes and small improvements.

I've ported most of my makefiles for current projects to Ant recently including those for XInclude and Processing XML with Java. Overall, it's a plus. However, it makes classpath issues even more confusing, especially in XML work, because the parser Ant loads for its own parsing often conflicts with the one you're loading for your project's parsing.


IBM has released version 1.16 of their popular Jikes open source Java compiler. This release adds support for assertions, and fixes numerous bugs. "This release is dedicated to geeks and the people who love them."

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Sun's posted a draft of the next version of the Java Specification Participation Agreement for public comment. Overall the new version appears to further level the playing field between Sun and other participants, and to require the Specification Lead "to authorize the creation of Independent Implementations, i.e. compatible implementations of the Specification that do not include any of the Reference Implementation (Section 5.B). For the rare situations in which code from the RI must be used in the creation of a compatible implementation, this code (“Shared Code”) must be licensed on a stand-alone basis at no cost to the licensee". Comments are due by August 7.


Sun's posted the final specification for Java Specification Request (JSR) 52, A Standard Tag Library for JavaServer Pages. This defines standard tags for:

Expression language support
<c:out>, <c:set. c:remove>, <c:catch>
Iteration
<c:forEach>, <c:forTokens>
Selection
<c:if>, <c:when>, <c:choose>, <c:otherwise>
URL Handling
<c:import>, <c:url>, <c:param>, <c:redirect>
Internationalization
<fmt:message>, <fmt:locale, fmt:bundle>, <fmt:message>, <fmt:param>, <fmt:requestEncoding>
Text formatting
<fmt:timeZone>, <fmt:formatNumber, fmt:parseNumber>, <fmt:formatDate>, <fmt:parseDate>
SQL
<sql:query>, <sql:update>, <sql:transaction>, <sql:driver, sql:param>
XML Processing
<x:parse>, <x:out>, <x:set>
XML Flow Control
<x:if>, <x:choose>, <x:when>, <x:otherwise>, <x:forEach>
XML Transformation
<x:transform>, <x:param>

As usual the spec is only available in PDF instead of the much more convenient HTML.


Sun's submitted JSR-189, Java 3D API 1.4 to the Java Community Process (JCP). Possible technologies for inclusion include:

Comments are due by July 22.


IBM's alphaWorks has released Tengger, a tool for converting a UML class diagram design to a Java basis for implementing a real function. Windows, Java, and Perl are required.

Tuesday, July 9, 2002

Oliver Burn's released Checkstyle 2.3, a lint-like tool that checks Java code for adherence to various coding standards. Checkstyle is published under the LGPL.


The Apache Jakarta Project has posted a beta of version 4.1.7 of Tomcat, the servlet container/JSP engine for the Apache web server and the official reference implementation of the Servlet 2.3 API and Java Server Pages 1.2. Version 4.1.7 fixes bugs, supports pure TLS, and allows JSP custom tags instances to be reused.


Jacksum 1.0.0 is a GPL'd checksum utility for Java. Supported algorithms include Adler32, BSD sum, POSIX cksum, CRC-16, CRC-32, MD2, MD5, SHA, and Unix System V sum.

Monday, July 8, 2002

The Object Refinery has posted version 0.9.2 of the JFreeChart open source library. JFreeChart can produce pie charts, line charts, various kinds of bar charts, XY plots and scatter plots, time series, high/low/open/close charts, candle stick charts, and combination charts. Version 0.9.2 adds "additional features for controlling pie charts, a simple HTML image map generator, and some important bug fixes."

Sunday, July 7, 2002

Christopher Clemens Lee has released JavaNCSS 20.40, a GPL'd source measurement suite for Java. It can tell you how many "Non Commenting Source Statements" (NCSS) there are in your code as well as calculating the "Cyclomatic Complexity Number (McCabe metric)". This release adds XSLT stylesheets to convert the XML output of JavaNCSS to HTML.


The Apache Jakarta Project has released log4j 1.2.5, an open source logging package for Java that allows developers to enable logging at runtime without modifying the application binary. Version 1.2.4 fixes a few bugs.


 JGAP 0.21 is an LGPL'd genetic algorithms library for Java that "is designed to require minimum effort to use "out of the box", but is highly modular and allows custom components to be easily plugged in by the more adventurous." It supports XML persistence, an event system, and a default natural selection algorithm.

Saturday, July 6, 2002

Version 1.0 of the JADE Open Framework has been released. "Its purpose is to allow Java developers to create high quality, consistent and maintainable database driven web applications and web sites quickly and easily." JADE is an open source rapid application development tool for J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition). JADE runs in any J2EE compliant container on top of most of the popular database management systems.

Friday, July 5, 2002

Kevin Herrboldt's posted version 0.7 of OpenJNLP, an open-source implementation of the Java Network Launching Protocol that lies at the foundation of Sun's Java Web Start. Version 0.7 fixes "problems that caused OpenJNLP to always reload resources into the cache when launching an app. OpenJNLP now uses resources directly from cache if up to date. Added support for launching JNLP Applets."

Thursday, July 4, 2002

Source-Navigator 5.1.0 is a source code analysis tool and editor that can display relationships between classes, methods, and fields. It works with the Insight GUI interface for GDB, and supports C, C++, Java, Tcl,FORTRAN, and COBOL. It is published under the GPL.


Guillaume Desnoix's slaf 0.13 is a Swing "LookAndFeel" that provides many themes, including Gnome, KDE, Pilot, Aqua, BeOS, Redmond, Aluminium, and Alien. This release adds the new 1.4 components (Spinner, FormattedTextField) and improves renderign of other components. slaf is published under the GPL.

Wednesday, July 3, 2002

Kaffe 1.0.7 has been released. Kaffe is a GPL'd virtual machine for executing Java bytecodes. It is mostly JDK 1.2 compatible, though some APIs from JDK1.3 and even JDK1.4 have been implemented. New features include:

It does not include a complete byte code verifier so it is not as secure as a regular Java virtual machine. The java.awt.dnd, java.awt.color, java.awt.datatransfer, java.awt.font, java.awt.geom, java.awt.im, java.awt.print, java.nio, java.rmi, java.util.logging, java.util.prefs, and java.util.regex packages are all missing. It's not clear what other features may be omitted. Running Kaffe through Sun's compatibility suite would be very helpful, but for licensing reasons that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Tuesday, July 2, 2002

The fifth beta of Luxor, a GPL'ed XML User Interface Language (XUL) toolkit for Java, has been posted. Luxor includes a web server, a portal engine that supports RSS, the Velocity template engine, a Python interpreter, and more. Beta 5 adds:

Monday, July 1, 2002

Sun's released the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) Personal Basis Profile Specification 1.0.


Nokia's released the Mobile Media API Specification 1.0, a Multimedia API for J2ME for basic audio and multimedia support.


Sun's released the J2ME Remote Method Invocation (RMI) Optional Package Specification 1.0. Basically, this looks like RMI for J2ME. The reference implementation requires a per-unit royalty.


AspectJ 1.0.5 has been released, an open source aspect-oriented programming (AOP) environment for Java. AOP allows you to write code that is used in multiple places in multiple classes. Version 1.0.5 has revised the entire user interface, which is now more tightly more tightly integrated into JBuilder and NetBeans/Forte. Java 1.1 or later is required.


Michael Fuchs has posted version 0.2.6 of his DocBook Doclet that creates DocBook SGML and XML documents from JavaDoc. This release fixes a couple of bugs.


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Copyright 2002 Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Last Modified July 12, 2002