Articles

Web Swinging
You application needs content from a web page or web service, so that rules out writing a rich application and forces you to write a web app, right? Not so fast. The emerging trend of smashups--Swing mashups--combine rich Swing GUIs with data fetched from the Web. Richard Bair shows you how to bring these web-fetching techniques to your Swing app. Oct. 12, 2006

Weblogs

Java(FX) Enterprise Development: There's been a lot of rumor recently about enterprise Java development and where its headed, and what Sun's commitment is, particularly with regards to JavaFX. Here I talk about some of these issues. Questions welcome!
Posted by rbair on November 07, 2008 at 13:16 PST | Permalink | Discuss (17)  

Leaving For Dublin: Luan O'Carroll was gracious enough to invite me to speak at the Irish Java Technology Conference this week in Dublin. Whooorah!
Posted by rbair on November 06, 2007 at 06:58 PST | Permalink | Discuss (1)  

Nimbus Bugs: Recently, the Nimbus L&F became available with the early access builds of Java 6 update 5. We have some folks try it out, but not know where to file bugs. Ok. So this is going to be a boring blog, but I wanted to get the word out on how to help us debug Nimbus.
Posted by rbair on October 02, 2007 at 08:18 PST | Permalink | Discuss (1)  

App Framework JavaPolis Talk Online: Hans Muller's App Framework talk from this past JavaPolis is now online at http://parleys.com
Posted by rbair on May 22, 2007 at 10:53 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

Remi's Property Proposal: For those of use who'd like to see Properties in the language, things are starting to get interesting. Remi Forax recently spelled out a more complete proposal, which I tend to like. Quite a bit. With a few tweaks.
Posted by rbair on January 24, 2007 at 09:39 PST | Permalink | Discuss (27)  

Properties in Java? Hoorah!: Properties in Java? Awesome! As with any new language feature, there has been a lot of debate over whether this is an improvement to the language, or a detriment. And of course, every language-designer-wannabe (myself included!) is pounding the pulpit, declaring the One True Way to Property bliss. Well, sit back and enjoy as I pound the pulpit. Because seriously, I really do have the right solution! I promise!
Posted by rbair on January 08, 2007 at 14:09 PST | Permalink | Discuss (45)  

Five Little Things: Romain Guy tagged me. Now I have to share 5 little known facts about myself.
Posted by rbair on January 02, 2007 at 17:09 PST | Permalink | Discuss (6)  

SSL and Self Signed Certs:
Posted by rbair on October 24, 2006 at 14:37 PST | Permalink | Discuss (9)  

XMLHttpRequest and Swing: Say that again? XMLHttpRequest and Swing? Yep, you heard me right. Yesterday and today I've been experimenting with implementing a version of the esteemed XMLHttpRequest (from the Ajax world, of course!) for use with Swing apps. Actually, today's blog goes a lot futher that simply XMLHttpRequest. It also traverses the little-explored corner of the country known as JSONandSwingland. Wow, it is a good thing I brought my hiking boots. And some spare water.
Posted by rbair on August 31, 2006 at 17:01 PST | Permalink | Discuss (11)  

Varargs Puzzler: This probably isn't up to Click 'n' Clack's standards, but here's a fun little Java 5 puzzler for a Thursday afternoon.
Posted by rbair on August 10, 2006 at 14:28 PST | Permalink | Discuss (10)  

A (Barely) Better Looking Yahoo! News Demo: I was greeted this afternoon by a retching Hans Muller who begged me to upload a better looking demo for the Yahoo! News web service I posted about last time. He likened last week's entry to a fat man in a speedo. Yikes. Here's a barely better demo (pun intended).
Posted by rbair on July 10, 2006 at 18:27 PST | Permalink | Discuss (7)  

Simple Yahoo! News Reader: My last few blogs have been on using web services in Swing. This time I've created a simple Yahoo! News RSS reader JavaBean you can use in your own apps. And yes, this time I went all the way and wrote a JNLP.
Posted by rbair on June 30, 2006 at 15:52 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

Aerith is free!: The Aerith source code has been uploaded to aerith.dev.java.net. Check it!
Posted by rbair on June 28, 2006 at 14:00 PST | Permalink | Discuss (9)  

Swing and Non Blocking JAX-WS: This is a follow up on yesterday's blog about using JAX-WS and Swing. Yesterday I was a bad, bad, boy. I was making a web service call from the Event Dispatch Thread. Doh! Today, I introduce BackgroundWorker, a SwingWorker like JavaBean and repent of my old EDT-blocking ways.
Posted by rbair on June 27, 2006 at 16:12 PST | Permalink | Discuss (5)  

Swing, JAX-WS, and JavaBeans: JAX-WS can be a bit daunting, especially for the desktop developer. In this blog I show a simple web service, simple form, and how to use JavaBeans to tie it all together.
Posted by rbair on June 26, 2006 at 13:29 PST | Permalink | Discuss (6)  

The Unknown JavaBean:
Posted by rbair on May 31, 2006 at 18:19 PST | Permalink | Discuss (20)  

Baby Boy: Permit me a short indulgence: Luke Allen Bair was born February 3rd at 6:31pm. Families doing well.
Posted by rbair on February 09, 2006 at 10:15 PST | Permalink | Discuss (13)  

Netbeans and Ant -- it's a wonderful union:
Posted by rbair on October 07, 2005 at 10:56 PST | Permalink | Discuss (0)  

JIC -- Java Icon File Format: Tired of "dealing with a dozen png representations of a single (logical) icon as separated files"? Tired of writing/debugging the code to treat multiple files as a single logical unit? Well, Daniel Leuck, SwingLabs, and Ikayzo bring you JIC : the simple multi-resolution cross-platform icon format for Java!
Posted by rbair on October 03, 2005 at 16:21 PST | Permalink | Discuss (7)  

Deployment: Introducing a new sub project in the SwingLabs world, deployment.dev.java.net
Posted by rbair on October 03, 2005 at 11:13 PST | Permalink | Discuss (8)  

Every Project needs a Name: Frameworks and APIs are only as good as the applications they help you create. I've got a great app in mind for testing SwingLabs APIs, but no name. This is an official call for help! (queue Beatles tunes...)
Posted by rbair on August 26, 2005 at 16:16 PST | Permalink | Discuss (12)  

Not Invented Here?: "Not Invented Here", a clever phrase often used as a pejorative to indicate that somebody (usually due to ego?) would rather reinvent the wheel and write their own implementation than leverage an existing (and by implication, better) implementation. In this entry I try to shed some light on real technical reasons why "rolling your own" may be better than relying on somebody else's implementation.
Posted by rbair on August 15, 2005 at 11:44 PST | Permalink | Discuss (8)  

SwingLabs and Swing: You may have heard of SwingLabs, but how does it relate to Swing? Have you wondered about the contribution process, or why the JCA is required? In this blog I describe the relation between Swing and SwingLabs.
Posted by rbair on August 12, 2005 at 13:25 PST | Permalink | Discuss (4)  

SwingLabs - Direction and Status: I often get asked about SwingLabs -- what is it? When will it be stable? How do I get the sources? Who's contributing? What will it contain? In this entry I give a brief overview and attempt to describe our direction and status as a project.
Posted by rbair on August 10, 2005 at 15:01 PST | Permalink | Discuss (15)