Mac Features

Swing applications and Mac OS X menu bar

2008-07-17

Kirill Grouchnikov's blog has some pointers for using Swing applications and Mac OS X menu bar. "Every once in a while i get questions on using the Mac OS X menu bar for Swing applications running under Substance look-and-feel. This refers to the apple.laf.useScreenMenuBar VM flag that is respected by the native Aqua look-and-feel (and its third-party Quaqua extension). Up until this week the only advice that i could give was to use AWT menus (thanks to Quaqua’s author Werner Randelshofer for this). However, it is not the optimal solution for cross-platform Swing applications that wish to use Swing menus on non-Mac platform As i was thinking about this problem after being recently contacted by Sergiy Michka, i thought about an alternative solution which was later reviewed by Swing lead for Apple VM Mike Swingler."

Running VisualVM on MacOS X

2008-07-14

The Aquarium points out a tip for Running VisualVM on MacOS X: "I wrote about VisualVM yesterday (entry) but I had missed Octavian's Introduction where he gives instructions on how to use VisualVM on MacOS X. As a reminder, to run the VisualVM client you need a recent JVM, so you will need to use the latest JVM from Apple, but the app can run in a variety of JVMs, remote or local to VisualVM. VisualVM can even save the data into a snapshot and process it offline."

QuickTime for Java Deprecated?

2008-06-11

A post to the QuickTime for Java mailing list suggests that Apple has announced the deprecation of QTJ. Chang Yun writes, "I am currently attending 2008 Apple WWDC conference. Apple announced today they will release new OS (10.6 Snow Leopard) in year 2009. Instead of QuickTime 7.X, QuickTime X will accompany the new OS. Apple also officially announced today that QTJava will be deprecated once QuickTime X becomes available." The post has spawned a number of follow-ups discussing potential alternate technologies and calls to revive or rescue QTJ.

First steps with iPhone and Java...

Bruno Ghisi — 2008-05-26

I got an iPhone... Now what?! Here are some tips to start playing with Java on it.

Apple's Java 6 on Mac OS X available

Fabrizio Giudici — 2008-04-30

Now the scoop is not that we had to wait 1.5 years before it to be available, but the fact that it only supports 64bit Intel processors. No support for 32bit, no support for PPC. Yeah, PPC is dead, but how many existing installations exist with PPC and 32 bit Intel?

Java SE 6 for Mac OS X 10.5.2

2008-04-29

Available via Software Update, Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1 adds Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_05 to your Mac. This version of Java is only for Mac OS X v10.5.2 and later, and only runs on 64-bit Intel machines. Developers may want to check out the release notes, which detail major new features including an API to work with the Dock icon (getting and setting the image, adding a badge, setting a dock menu, etc.), the ability to provide document-modal dialog sheets, support for Java DTrace probes, AppleScript as a supported language to the javax.script API, and more.

Java 6 for OS X

David Herron — 2008-04-29

It's been how long? Thank you Apple for getting this out! Anyway, Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1...

Java ME "Hello World" on iPhone

2008-04-16

Hinkmond Wong has posted a blog apparently showing Java ME running on the iPhone SDK. Along with a screenshot of the iPhone emulator showing a Java ME version string and "Hello World" output, he writes, "Here's something I'm working on with Chris Plummer and Dean Long for JavaOne this year. Chris recently was able to build our Java ME CDC/Foundation Profile platform on Darwin OS x86 (hmmm... Darwin OS... I wonder what that means... ;-) ) last weekend. (I think he started on Friday afternoon and was ready with it on Saturday). Faster than you can say, "Java ME rules!""

NetBeans, Ruby and AppleScript

2008-04-10

In the NetBeans.tv screencast NetBeans, Ruby and AppleScript, Mac Developer Tips blogger John Muchow describes how to use NetBeans and rb-appscript (a bridge to connect Ruby to the Apple Event Manager) to control scriptable applications on a Mac. This introduction shows how you can get started using Ruby as an alternative to AppleScript for scripting applications on Mac OS X.

Sun to Bring Java to iPhone

2008-03-10

"Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple's iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java applications to run on the popular mobile device," according an InfoWorld article. "The JVM is to be based on the Java Micro Edition (ME) version of Java, said Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun, on Friday afternoon. Apple had not shown interest in enabling Java to run on the iPhone, but Sun plans to step in and do the job itself after having pondered Thursday's release of an SDK for the iPhone by Apple."

Rococoa

2008-02-25

Offering a new route to using Cocoa classes in Mac Java applications, the new Rococoa project, "is a generic Java binding to the Mac Objective-C object system. It allows the creation and use of Objective-C objects in Java, and the implementation of Objective-C interfaces in Java." Using JNA to quickly wrap Objective-C calls, the project initially started as a QTKit wrapper to expose QuickTime functionality, Rococoa examples of which are provided on a QuickTime page. Fair warning from the project owner, though: "Rococoa is very much work in progress. Much is subject to change. A lot isn't good enough not to change. But given the recent deprecation of the Java-Cocoa bridge, it's the best I've got. Just mind your head. And please give feedback."

Quaqua Look and Feel 4.1

2007-11-26

The Quaqua Look and Feel project for Mac OS X has released version 4.1. "The Quaqua Look and Feel is a user interface library for Java applications which wish to closely adhere to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for Mac OS X," automatically switching between appropriate looks for the Tiger, Panther, and Jaguar versions of OS X, and providing Swing implementations of NSBrowser and NSSheet. "Version 4.1 includes a FileChooserUI which roughly simulates the native file dialogs in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Except for panel backgrounds and frame borders, Quaqua still uses the Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger design."