Josh On Design

Short short version:

Not Awesome

I just read this. The last patent on the GIF format will expire on Sunday (October 1st, 2006). At long last the GIF format will be free. Of course we should all be using PNGs for everything, but thanks to lackluster IE support that's not always possible.

Introduction

Welcome back. Last week I introduced a cool new technology we've been working on in SwingLabs, Painters, and described how they work. If you missed the first blog you should go read it now. Don't worry. We'll wait.

I don't usually blog on non-Java topics here, but I thought I'd make a mention of how Windows Vista is improving.

One of the temptations of design is to not show your work until it's ready. Not until every edge is smoothed and every bolt is tightened should anyone be allowed to see it. While this might be okay for paintings or sculpture, in the world of software it often leads to bad APIs. An API is the user interface for other programmers. I'm a firm believer that user interfaces must be tested with real users, and as early as possible.

One of the great things about my job is that I get to go speak to customers and other groups of Java developers. Even more amazing than the fact that Sun pays me to do this is that people actually show up to listen to me. I'm sure you've all had those times where you feel like you are still the dumb kid who just graduated and somehow you have to make everyone around you think you actually know what you are talking about. While I know that I'm a Java expert and have interesting things to say, a little part of me is still scared. What if I say the wrong thing? What if someone asks me a question that I can't answer. What if I walk into a room full of SWT lovers?! The agony!

In response to my Meet the Engineer interview on Sun.com a reader asked for the source to my magnifying glass component (originally detailed in this blog). I haven't given it out because it was meant to be part of a larger framework for managing the glasspane and implementing other cool hacks. Alas I have simply not had the time. Java 6 and Java 5 updates combined with my SwingLabs and community work simply have taken up all of my available resources.

Yes the best is yet to come, and won't it be fine...

Welcome back to the Windows Look and Feel Show!

In this segment we'll dive right into some of the bugs directly. In this series I won't cover all of the bugs because some of them involve structural changes that didn't directly fix visible bugs. For example, the XPStyle class was significantly changed by adding enum support. Enums let us more closely model Microsoft's UXTheme API and it's list of part constants. Also, I'm only covering bugs that were fixed. There are quite a few bugs which were closed as not reproducible or no longer a bug because they were fixed by another fix or simply can't happen any more because of other code changes under the hood. With that in mind, let's take a look at a few.

Coming soon! Hard hitting, action packed, and full of effects you probably never asked for.

So you have probably wondered where I've been. It has been quite some time since my last post and I have been very lax in talking about what's going on. Well, the big news is that we are almost done with Java 6. Not really, of course, since there still emergency fixes that could go in, but we've hit our final build of main development. This means that my work is mostly complete for Java 6 and I can start working on the update releases and Java 7. However, scheduling and builds is not what I'm here to talk to you about.

Chances are no one reading my blog will be able to answer this question but hopefully in the future someone will run across this post in Google and respond with the answer.

Recently Simon Morris posted a blog called In defence of the desktop where he asks :"If SE is truly the edition of Java aimed at the desktop, and most real desktop applications (browsers, players, word processors, video editors) are not database heavy, why is Java DB being included in the SE JDK?". I'd like to challenge the idea that real desktop applications don't need databases. They may not be database heavy (in that storing data is not their primary function) but I do think that there are a lot of desktop apps which use databases, or could be improved by doing so.

A few days ago we released the code to Aerith, our JavaOne demo that combines photos, mapdata, and 3d effects. We worked very hard to get the code out to you and let you see how everything works. However, if you've downloaded the code you may have noticed that the code for the map parts is missing. Only the binaries are provided in the JXMapViewer.jar file. That's because the map component has a brighter future than just a JavaOne demo. It is now the first component in our new SwingLabs project: The Swing Web Services components, or SwingX-WS.

It look more work than expected (doesn't everything?) but at long last we have released the source code to Aerith, our killer 2d/3d/webservices mashup demo that we showed at the JavaOne 2006 keynote, and later in the SwingLabs booth and at the Apple BoF. The response to the demo was very positive so we made a commitment to release the code ASAP. Finally that day has arrived and it's today. Go download the code at the new Aerith homepage.

So you have probably wondered where I've been. Possibly even missed me. Or maybe you haven't and are glad I haven't wasted any of your precious packets during the last month. In either case: I'm back with lots of interesting things on the way. I've been on vacation, traveling, spending time with family, and then back on the job working on Aerith and getting Mustang ready for Vista. So let's dive in to the good stuff:

I just arrived home after a both grueling and exciting week of JavaOne. I'm taking the next two weeks off, though I will be blogging a bit and answering the occasional emails. Don't be surprised if I'm a bit slow to respond though as I'll be in Oregon most of the time sipping coffee and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.

I'm sitting in the audience watching Tuesday's keynote where Romain Guy and Richard Bair are on stage showing the new Swing demo we built called Aerith. It's a roadtrip slideshow builder that combines Google Maps, Flickr, and Yahoo Geocode to let you make your own slideshow of photos you took on your trip. Once you are doing setting up the slideshow you can share the trip with your friends as an applet.

I'm doing lots of pre-JavaOne work right now and I could easily bore you with details of our Java.net Community Leaders meeting on Saturday, but instead I'll tease you with our demo.