Review/Preview: 2006 and 2007 in Java
Publish Date: Dec. 20, 2006

2006 will be remembered as the year that Sun open-sourced Java under the GPL, that EJB 3.0 finally shipped, and that Google surprised everyone with its Google Web Toolkit. But how will history record the results of these events? For the 2006 year-ender, ONJava editor Chris Adamson looks at the year's events through the lens of how they may play out in 2007.

What Is Java
Publish Date: Mar. 8, 2006

Everyone knows what Java is, right? Interpreted code, applets, proprietary, and slow. Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. In its second decade, it's time to re-evaluate Java: the language and the virtual machine are going their own ways, its open source sub-community is vibrant and independent, and developers are taking the best ideas from other languages and frameworks and bringing them to Java. In this article, ONJava editor Chris Adamson tries to reset old assumptions about Java to fit modern realities.

The Java Podcasters, Part 2
Publish Date: Feb. 1, 2006

In this second article on Java-oriented podcasting, some more unique voices are featured, including a single-product podcast, and an amusing show that kicks back its feet and declares itself "drunk and retired". In this article, we interview the voices behind the ZDot, NetBeans Podcast, and DrunkAndRetired.com podcasts.

The Java Podcasters, Part 1
Publish Date: Jan. 25, 2006

As podcasting takes off, a number of podcasts specifically tailored to the Java developer have become available. Ranging from the serious to the silly, covering the whole Java realm or just a single product, there seems to be something for every developer with a set of headphones. In this article, we interview the voices behind the Swampcast and Java Posse podcasts.

ONJava: 2005 Year in Review
Publish Date: Dec. 21, 2005

2005 may not have seen a new version of Java, but it was a year of tremendous activity that saw Java assert its popularity, even while some wondered how well-suited Java is for its second decade. In this article, ONJava editor Chris Adamson wraps up the year in Java by looking back at some of the year's most popular articles.

Ruby the Rival
Publish Date: Nov. 16, 2005

Bruce Tate's Beyond Java picks Ruby as the front-runner among languages that could succeed Java among enterprise developers. But what's so great about Ruby--and frankly, what's wrong with Java? We asked some top Java bloggers, authors, and developers what they think of Ruby's challenge.

ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results, Part 2
Publish Date: Sep. 28, 2005

Is there anything else you'd like to tell our Java editors? Well, 226 people responding to the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey did. In this article, we show what they said and discuss what we're doing with the site.

ONJava 2005 Reader Survey Results, Part 1
Publish Date: Sep. 21, 2005

We asked who you are and what you're doing, and 988 people replied in just 12 days. In this first article of a two-part series, we reveal the results of the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey.

Announcing the 2005 ONJava Reader Survey
Publish Date: Sep. 7, 2005

The 2005 ONJava Reader Survey is underway. This is your opportunity to steer the site by helping us understand what you use, what you're interested in, and where you think Java is going.

JavaOne 2005: Participate in the Future of Java
Publish Date: Jun. 29, 2005

JavaOne 2005 is touting the successes of Java, charting the next versions of Java's standard and enterprise editions, and calling on members of the Java community to participate in Java's future.

What's New For Developers in QuickTime
Publish Date: Jun. 28, 2005

In Part 1 of this series, Chris Adamson covered the new features of QT7 that end users will see. Today, he shows you some of the most prominent changes from a developer point of view, including: the QTKit API for Cocoa, the new QuickTime MetaData API, support for frame reordering codecs, Core Audio-based sound enhancements, and QuickTime for Java.

Welcome to a New World: JBoss World 2005
Publish Date: Mar. 9, 2005

JBoss World, held in Atlanta on March 1-2, kicked off with announcements of new directions for the company and a roundtable of customers discussing the popular application server. This article offers a recap of the opening presentations.

QuickTime for Java Components
Publish Date: Jan. 26, 2005

In this excerpt from QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook, Chris Adamson introduces QuickTime components and how they enable runtime discovery of available features, including importers and exporters for graphics and movie formats.

Streaming QuickTime with Java
Publish Date: Jan. 12, 2005

Realtime multicast streaming came to QuickTime in version 5, but now, years later, it's not widely realized that it can be called from QuickTime for Java. Chris Adamson, author of QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook, shows how it works.

Results from the Second 2004 ONJava Reader Survey
Publish Date: Jan. 5, 2005

Editor Chris Adamson summarizes the results of the recent reader survey, including favorite tools, platforms, and what you want to see on the site in 2005.

ONJava 2004 in Review: Editor's Choice
Publish Date: Dec. 29, 2004

Editor Chris Adamson takes a look back at some of the most interesting articles published on ONJava during the last year.

ONJava 2004 in Review: Popular Articles
Publish Date: Dec. 22, 2004

Editor Chris Adamson takes a look back at some of the most popular articles published on ONJava during the last year.

A Distributed Discussion with Elliotte Rusty Harold
Publish Date: Dec. 15, 2004

In this interview, Java Network Programming, 3rd Edition author Elliotte Rusty Harold discusses the improvements and hazards of networking in Java, as well as the evolution of Java itself.

Writing Your ONJava Wish List
Publish Date: Nov. 17, 2004

It's time again for the ONJava reader survey. This article links to the survey and discusses how its results are used to shape the editorial content of the site.

Results from the 2004 ONJava Reader Survey
Publish Date: May. 19, 2004

The results of the 2004 ONJava Reader Survey are in, and they show a readership that uses a wide variety of tools and standards. They also show where ONJava is, and isn't, providing the content the readers want.

ONJava: 2003 in Review
Publish Date: Dec. 30, 2003

A look back at ONJava articles from 2003, summarizing the big topics and major trends of the year in Java.

QTJ Audio
Publish Date: Dec. 17, 2003

QuickTime Java is well-suited to be the engine of audio-only applications, such as MP3 players. This article develops an audio player, QTBebop, that displays song metadata, band levels, and current time, all of which help introduce the useful audio-related tools provided by QuickTime to the Java developer. We also look at QuickTime's "callbacks," which are critical to all kinds of QT apps.

The Return of the Blue Q
Publish Date: Oct. 29, 2003

This article describes the new QTJ by relating the history of why it was broken in the first place, how it was fixed, how to use the new version, and what we might expect to see from QTJ going forward.

Making Media from Scratch, Part 2
Publish Date: Aug. 27, 2003

QuickTime is a media creation API. It supports far more than just editing and playing movies -- you can create them, one frame at a time. Chris Adamson demonstrates how to build movies, frame by frame, and even animate still images.

Making Media from Scratch, Part 1
Publish Date: Aug. 13, 2003

QuickTime is a media creation API. It supports far more than just editing and playing movies -- you can create them, one frame at a time. Chris Adamson demonstrates how to make moves from scratch with QuickTime for Java.

Re-Introducing QuickTime for Java, Part 2
Publish Date: Jun. 4, 2003

The QuickTime media API is stable and featureful. Due to its lineage, it's organized a little differently than a normal Java API. Chris Adamson explores the organization of QTJ and demonstrates a small video editor.

A Gentle Re-Introduction to QuickTime for Java
Publish Date: May. 14, 2003

The QuickTime media API is stable and featureful. The Java SDK ships with useful docs and examples. Putting the two together can be painful, though. Chris Adamson presents a gentle introduction to programming QuickTime with Java.

Parsing and Writing QuickTime Files in Java
Publish Date: Feb. 19, 2003

Writing QuickTime files in Java is easy, if you understand the file format. Chris Adamson argues that it makes a lot of sense. This article explains how the file format works, demonstrating how to read and write to QT files.

Java Media Development with QuickTime for Java
Publish Date: Dec. 23, 2002

With its pathetic support for media files, the Java Media Framework is almost useless. "Almost," because the plug-in architecture lets you use a real media API -- QuickTime for Java.

Self-Playing Media with Java Media Framework
Publish Date: Oct. 9, 2002

The Java Media Framework may not impress you as a media player client, but when you realize that you can deploy content without requiring a specific player on the user's machine, and that you can bundle the player and the media in a single download, it starts to look very interesting.

View all articles by Chris Adamson.

The Community of Web 2.0
Publish Date: Nov. 2, 2005

In this 48-minute audio program from the Web 2.0 conference, Tim O'Reilly speaks with Sun Microsystems COO Jonathan Schwartz and Mozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker about developer communities, distribution, architectures and expandability, and the value of open source.

Swing Hacks

Customer Reviews

Fun...love it...lets see another
2007-08-29 06:03:27 Anonymous Reader
I bought this book when if first came out. I love it. I wonder if these other reviewers simply had the wrong expectations. I still like to read it, years later. It is inspiring. Getting under the hood of Swing is fun, and this book does a great job.

I would like to see more complete code examples in the download. But more importantly I'd like to see another book!

Good work.

Disappointed...
2006-12-19 13:31:02 Anonymous Reader
I couldn't agree with this review more. The ideas in the book are great but its pretty much useless without the examples. Hack #36 is completely missing from

https://examples.oreilly.com/swinghks/swing-hacks-examples-20060109.zip

Me thinks that's pretty shitty on ora's part.

This book is exactly what the title says
2006-10-25 23:19:56 Swing Hacker!
Right in the beginning of the book it states that some of the examples in this book "are just plain silly, in print only to prove it could be done".

However, I have found that most of the examples in this book (even if they seem silly at first) are real eye-openers to possible ideas for my own Swing applications.

If you use the book code as it was written, it probably won't do what you want. But since this is a book about hacks, keep hacking the code and you will get what you want (as even suggested in the text for most of the hacks in the book)!

This book does assume some knowledge of Swing, but I don't know why anyone who has never written a serious Swing app would be looking at this book in the first place. For those of us that have (and still are) writing Swing apps, this book is a godsend. I just wish it had more hacks, like how to get an IconImage to appear in the title of a non-resizable JDialog!

Disappointed...
2005-12-31 14:13:33 ZacWolf
I've got to say this is my only experience with a bad O'REILLY book!

After a very quick review at my local bookstore, I was very excited with the various hack descriptions.

I'm thinking that's apparently the exact thing that happened to the editor, because when you get into the actual guts of the various "hacks" you find them to be more "kludge" than anything useful.

I'm most disappointed with the "examples" zip you can download, as it seems to be missing over half of the images used in the book which makes the example code fairly useless if you want to replicate the figures from the book.

All and all, there are some useful tidbits that you can get out of the material, but it's nowhere near the "reference" quality I'm used to seeing in O'REILLY books.

Maybe I was looking for something along the O'REILLY "Cookbook" line of books, that focus on reference quality code examples.

I have to admit that the book does clearly say "Tips & Tools" right on the cover, but I'd say it leans more towards Tips than real Tools.

Just be aware,
-Zac Morris
www.zacwolf.com

Finally -- an advanced Swing book
2005-08-05 18:57:19 Ronald Hughes
Awesome. This is a Swing book unlike any other.
It doesn't regurgitate the entire API for every
Swing widget -- there are lots of other books that
do that -- but rather, this book provides particular
complete pieces of code that do AMAZING things.
Some show how easily to create cool visually rich
customizations that work the way Swing was designed
to be used, while others are clever tricks that do
stuff that the Swing designers obviously never
intended!

I love the way the examples are minimal yet
complete. It's code that can easily be hacked
into an already-existing application.

It's time for Java apps to surge back onto the
desktop. This book is gonna help make that happen.

QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook

Customer Reviews

Would be the best, even if it weren't the only book on the subject
2007-02-11 07:50:10 Bjorn
This book not only gets you going with QTJ, but it also provides a great introduction to QuickTime in general. I have some other books on QuickTime, and this is the only one that shows you how to get the simple jobs done, with enough information to help you figure out how to get the hard jobs done, so after reading this book I was able to not only use QuickTime for Java, but also use QuickTime in C. The book is easy to read, short, and nevertheless very practical. Well done!

Media Reviews

"The steps are shown on how to build your own QuickTime using Java and it shows lots of stuff not found elsewhere. When things break you will now be able to know why and what to do about them (okay, at least you will be able to see the man behind the curtain!). The word would be 'demystify.'

"Get your virtual hands dirty digging into the QuickTime code and play the cross-platform game with Java. This is a fun book for codesters who want to dip their toes into the QuickTime/Java pool."
--Robert Pritchett, MacCompanion, May 2005