[ews.eclipse.technology.desk] Re: What else is out there?

[Robert Enyedi <renyedi@xxxxxxxxx>]

I looked into the JDIC project and I have some comments/concerns. 
However, I'm not a member of this project, so these might not really matter.

Probably the richest features are the org.jdesktop.jdic.browser and 
org.jdesktop.jdic.tray packages. These both are available for quite a 
time in SWT. However, there might be feature wise differences.

The org.jdesktop.jdic.filetypes seems interesting since it doesn't offer 
only a read only implementation.

Some methods of org.jdesktop.jdic.desktop.Desktop seem interesting, but 
some are already available in SWT.

On the UI level there's integration with AWT. This is an issue.

I suppose that license incompatibility might be another impediment.

I found out the hard way that developing a native implementation across 
multiple platforms is a real pain. And I raise the same question:

Why can't these two projects be joined (at least at the native code 
level)? This way the Java community would have a proper tool set to 
develop powerful cross-platform desktop applications.

Robert


Ian Darwin wrote:
> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned on this list that Sun's Java Desktop 
> Project already exists and does many of the things people are talking 
> about.
>
> "The JDesktop Integration Components" (JDIC) project aims to make 
> Java[based apps] first-class citizens of current desktop platforms 
> without sacrificing platform independence". Current support includes
> registering as a file type handler, email, embedding the native web 
> browser, "tray" icons where supported, creating installer packages, 
> system screensavers in Java...
>
> Is there some requirement for the Eclipse Foundation to single-handedly 
> re-invent every wheel, or is there a chance of working together with Sun 
> on this one particular project?
>
> At least look at what they've done and how much code is involved.
> See if their code license is miscible with the Eclipse license and avoid 
> some reinvention.
>
> http://javadesktop.org/ is the home site.
>
> https://jdic.dev.java.net/ is the code site.
>
> Ian