Java SE 6 update 12 - 64-bit plugin, anyone?
A couple of weeks back our teams started to work on another significant milestone of Java SE in the 6 family - 6u12. Even though it is "just" one of the updates, it is going to bring some of the new major functionality the Java users have been asking for, for a long time. The complete list of new features will be published upon the release, but to highlight some of the ones some of you might find interesting:
64-bit plugin* Support 64-bit Java Plug-in and Java webstart on Windows/Linux on AMD64 (4802695) - allows running applets and Java WebStart applications in a 64-bit VM in a 64-bit browser on the supported platformsLightweight/heavyweight component mixing* Allow limited mixing of heavy and lightweight components (4811096) - enables easier embedding- Windows Server 2008 support
* to prevent possible confusion I've replaced the short feature name with the change request's (CR) synopsis. To see more details, click the CR id.
Now the best part - all of these features have already been integrated in the early access builds. You can check the latest (b02) one out on the http://jdk6.dev.java.net portal, or directly at the download page - http://download.java.net/jdk6/. The plan is to publish all builds until the GA (General Availability) release, so check back often for new builds.
Give it a try and let us if you encounter any issues. The best way is through this page.
Finally, that's gorgeous news!
Posted by Fred on December 11, 2008 at 06:34 AM PST #
Hi,
This is great news. glad to see Sun is back to telling the development community about future builds so we can help out.
Problem is even after the release it will take a year or two before the internet users are fully using this release. Sun will need to somehow push this release out to as many users as possible and not have the users do it manually.
For MyUniPortal ( http://www.myuniportal.com )the mixing has been in place for several years thus has seen quite a bit of use and testing. Hopefully this gets a lot of testing before release.
Best Regards,
Tony Anecito
Founder,
MyUniPortal
http://www.myuniportal.com
Posted by Tony Anecito on December 11, 2008 at 07:03 AM PST #
Tony,
we're trying to have three Java SE releases every year where we turn the auto-update (AU) on. One of them just got released as 6u11 last Tuesday.
6u12 we don't plan to AU at this time, but the new features will be pushed to users with the next AU release that should come out quite shortly after 6u12.
>Hopefully this gets a lot of testing before release.
You can certainly help with that! :-)
Thanks for your comments,
Vita
Posted by Vita Santrucek on December 11, 2008 at 10:25 AM PST #
I am using 64bit vista and would love to have access to the plugin from firefox. Are there instructions for registering the plugin with vista? Unless I'm missing something the selfextracting jar doesn't make that easy. Also the download link for the windows 64bit JDK doesn't appear to work.
Posted by Jim on December 11, 2008 at 11:57 AM PST #
i've installed this stuff on debian sid into /usr/local/java, symlinked jdk1.6.0_12 as jdk, setted up java_home and path to /usr/local/java/jdk and /usr/local/java/jdk/bin respectively.
now jdk works with 64 bit eclipse, but the plugin won't appear in firefox (iceweasel from repo and a firefox nightly build) if i symlink libjavaplugin_jni.so into /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins or /usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins. what else is left?
Posted by vik on December 11, 2008 at 12:22 PM PST #
Vik, with the new plugin (introduced in 6u10) you need to link ${jreloc}/lib/${ARCH}/libnpjp2.so to your firefox plugin directory.
Posted by Vita Santrucek on December 11, 2008 at 02:00 PM PST #
wow, it works, thank you very much!!
Posted by vik on December 11, 2008 at 02:03 PM PST #
That's great news !! Lightweight/heavyweight component mixing is something I thought was not possible ;-) It may also mean that people will be able to mix some AWT and Swing components, which can also be a good thing for some older apps. Another proof that Java is not stalling, but going forward in a sensible way.
Posted by Hervé on December 11, 2008 at 02:13 PM PST #
Jim, thanks for letting me know about the broken link to the 64 bit Win JDK installer. Our release engineer fixed it. Please, use the exe file and it will register the plugin automatically.
Posted by Vita Santrucek on December 11, 2008 at 03:50 PM PST #
Fantastic news. Thanks guys.
Posted by Terence Mackie on December 11, 2008 at 05:08 PM PST #
Thanks for fixing the bad link. I installed the jdk and the public jre but if I visit a page with a applet both IE 7 and Firefox 3.0.4 report no java available. THe java control panel is in controlpanel->programs. I can check the box to enable Java in Mozilla but it doesn't appear to do any thing. If I check it than close the jcp and then reopen jcp the Mozilla box is unchecked. What file is supposed to be in the firefox/plugins directory?
Posted by Jim on December 11, 2008 at 05:38 PM PST #
I installed the jre on a 32bit Windows xp, the Lightweight heavyweight component mixing works fine on popup menu and tooltip but does not work well with heavyweight component in JScrollPane, you have to resize the frame to make heavyweight component paint properly
Posted by lang on December 11, 2008 at 06:14 PM PST #
Lang & all, please note the synopsis of 4811096 - "Allow *limited* mixing ..", this feature will be enhanced over the next releases and some more complex scenarios might not be available in 6u12.
For the issue that you're seeing, can you post/send me the source code to reproduce the problem?
Posted by Vita Santrucek on December 12, 2008 at 11:21 AM PST #
Thanks for the reminder about needing a 64 bit browser. I installed minefield and everything works great. Keep up the good work.
Posted by JIM on December 12, 2008 at 12:33 PM PST #
code:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Button;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
public class HLMixTest {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
JPanel p = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEFT));
p.add(new Button("Test"));
p.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 500));
JScrollPane sp = new JScrollPane(p);
JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.getContentPane().add(sp, BorderLayout.CENTER);
((JComponent) f.getContentPane()).setBorder(
BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(50, 50, 50, 50));
f.setSize(400, 400);
f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.setVisible(true);
}
}
Drag the scrollbar to make button move out of the viewport, you can see the button does not been clipped.
Then resize the frame a little bit, the button will be clipped properly.
Posted by lang on December 12, 2008 at 08:50 PM PST #
Vita,
This is good news.
1. Is Windows Server 2008 Support still in the release.
2. Any targeted date of GA?
Thanks,
Troy
Posted by Troy harris on January 17, 2009 at 10:41 AM PST #
Whatever
Posted by 207.200.116.70 on July 09, 2009 at 05:05 PM PDT #