Josh On Design

Well, the new year has come and my vacation is over. I the last three weeks I gave a way a bunch of projects, released the JXMapViewerApplet, I had my entire family fly to Oregon from all over the country, and got married to the beautiful Jennifer Greenup. I even got to stop for some coffee (see photo below). Not bad for a supposed vacation.

So what does 2007 bring? For me personally, a lot less moving. I'm settled in Oregon now (still have to get a new license) which means that I can get back to SwingLabs and cool open source projects.

For the Java world, 2007 is going to be an exciting place. Over the next year the community will begin to explore the possibilities revealed by open sourcing Java. I can't wait to see what happens. I'm also personally involved in several cool projects that we will develop and reveal over the course of this year. Here's just a quick preview of what's coming.

Big changes in Swing Labs. I won't say any more. Instead I'll let Rich take the lead on this.

Finishing up Painters and the JXMapViewer. This are both subprojects in Swing Labs that I have been very passionate about over the last year. As we put the final touches on version 1.0 I hope you will find some interesting things to do with them. I am particularly intrigued with the JXMapViewerApplet. If we can control the applet using Javascript then many interesting hacks become possible.

I proposed several sessions for Java One, including a Birds of a Feather talk on Flying Saucer. This year I've taken a different approach. Rather than discussing how Flying Saucer works I will show how to use it in some real world applications; with PDF generation as the focus.

Top notch support in NetBeans for JSRs 295 and 296, the Beans Binding and Application frameworks. We are homing in on final designs for a suite of new features that will make building client apps a breeze in NetBeans. Look for new builds over the coming months as we approach JavaOne.

A top secret project. There's an idea I've had for a while that will finally come to fruition this year. This project is the reason I have been clearing my plate of other code and projects. I really feel the idea is so good it warrants spending all of my free time on it.

Speaking of clearing my plate, there is one last code drop to give away. Look for it next week.

So lets say goodbye to 2006 and look forward to all of the great things coming in 2007. It's going to be an exciting year!

- Josh