Swing Application Framework

The JSR-296 Swing Application Framework prototype implementation is a small set of Java classes that simplify building desktop applications. The prototype provides infrastructure that's common to most desktop applications:

• Application lifecyle, notably GUI startup and shutdown.
• Support for managing and loading resources, like strings, formatted messages, images, colors, fonts, and other types common to desktop applications.
• Support for defining, managing, and binding Actions, including Actions that run asynchronously (in the "background").
• Persistent session state: support for automatically and selectively saving GUI state from one run of an application to the next.

The JSR-296 expert group launched this effort in late summer 2006. A prototype implementation, spec, and some small examples are now available. Although the JSR has not reached the "Early Draft" JCP review stage, the expert group has agreed to make the prototype public to give interested members of the Swing community the opportunity to provide feedback. This version is just a snapshot of the ongoing design process, it's likely to change substantially in the coming months.

The intended audience for this snapshot is experienced Swing developers with a moderately high tolerance for pain. Although JSR-296's ultimate goal is to bridge the gap to novice developers, the project's current doc/spec/robustness qualities aren't a good match for novices just yet.

So we're looking for feedback at this point. Constructive feedback would be great; ranting and raving is OK too, particularly if it's funny. We're not looking to adopt an existing framework or even for code contributions however if there's an existing Swing application framework you're fond of, then feedback of the form: "framework X has a feature that JSR-296 lacks and the reason X is important is ...", would be great. Reports about bugs in the current implementation would be welcomed too.

Downloads, Docs, and Feedback

The easiest way to take a look at the project is download and unzip the NetBeans AppFramework project and review the intro document. The intro document provides an overview of the API and it's structured as a series of examples.

An Introduction to the Swing Application Framework API (JSR-296)

Source code: AppFramework-0.43-src.zip

At the moment the framework itself and the examples (in the examples package) all get built together (likewise for the javadoc). It's been convenient way to deal with the code so far, we'll probably split things apart properly eventually.

You can browse the javadoc "spec" for the framework and examples directly. Javadoc coverage is sketchy now, hopefully it will be comprehensive for the next release. As noted above, try to ignore the fact that the examples package and the application package are all in the same place.

Browse the javadoc: AppFramework-0.43

Download the javadoc: AppFramework-0.43-doc.zip

Frequently Asked Questions

If you'd like to send some feedback about the design, please subscribe to the users mailing list and send your feedback there: https://appframework.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectMailingListList
[The users email alias is the last one, all the way at the bottom.]

If you just want to browse the user's forum archives here's a link: appframework users's forum . You can send email directly to the appframework user's forum without subscribing: users@appframework.dev.java.net , however your email will be moderated by yours truly.

Presentations, Blogs, other Links

• The JSR on JCP.org: JSR 296: Swing Application Framework
• JavaOne 2006 presentation: A Simple Framework for Desktop Applications
• JavaOne 2007 presentation: JSR-296: The Swing Application Framework
• Blog announcing JSR-296: JSR 296 Bows - Swing Application Framework
• Blog announcing the first release of the prototype implementation: Application Framework Prototype Bows
• An article for Artima.com: A Framework for Swing
• JavaPolis 2006 presentation: JSR-296 Swing Application Framework
• I also wrote a blog about giving this presentation, since it concluded in a rather unusual way: Javapolis Session Interrupted by Marriage Proposal