mardi mars 22, 2005

Read Blogs Without Leaving NetBeans
While I admit that I'm writing this blog after reading this, the idea isn't quite new.

In his "FeedReader" tutorial (version française ici), Rich Unger explains how to develop an RSS reader on top of the NetBeans platform (using P@'s and friends' Rome Atom/RSS tools). This tutorial focuses on developing such a Rich client application without using the NetBeans IDE to show you don't depend on it at development time or runtime. The required JAR files (the NetBeans Platform) are under 7 Megs.

Using the IDE makes development a little simpler as NetBeans Modules are first-class citizens in the NetBeans IDE, allowing you to "Install/Reload in current IDE", "Create NBM" (the NetBeans Module packaging format), etc...

You can also use the nbm ANT target in the source code provided to generate the NBM and simply install them in NetBeans using the Update Center.



Finally, using a dedicated "Branding" module, the GUI is here internationalized and shown on the right in French. More customization allows you to have your own icons, splash screen, etc... (that's what Java Studio Creator, Java Studio Enterprise, and Sun Studio do).

This is all non-supported code. Use at your own risk and amusement!

( mars 22 2005, 03:26:22 PM CET ) Permalink

Consumer Java
When developing rich clients with Java (maybe with JDNC) for the Internet, you need to worry about deploying your application (using Java Web Start, Applets, or some home-made deployment) and making sure an appropriate JVM is ready to execute your app.

Given the number of non-standard Microsoft VMs still around and the fact that versions of Microsoft Windows do not ship a JRE (unless you bought a computer from one of the OEMs provinding it), a few things can go wrong when a user tries to start your application. Sun has put a lot of effort into making sure Java 5.0 is as compatible as possible with every Java code that's been written in the past. There's also a description of the issues you may face while moving off of MSVM, a tool to asses a deployed applet and a forum.

In addition, Sun is providing consumer support for users of the Sun JVM. So your customers can ask questions about the issues they face right here (et ici en français) so that you only get the application-specific questions. As Norbert explains it, this is effective and L10N does matter.

( mars 22 2005, 09:23:05 AM CET ) Permalink