Java-gnome

Java-gnome
Initial release	0.99 / January 20, 1999
Stable release	4.1.3 / May 5, 2013 (2013-05-05)
Written in	C and Java
Operating system	UNIX-like
Type	GUI language bindings for java
License	GNU General Public License with exception.
Website	java-gnome.sourceforge.net
Repository	github.com/afcowie/java-gnome

java-gnome is a set of language bindings for the Java programming language for use in the GNOME desktop environment. It is part of the official GNOME language bindings suite and provides a set of libraries allowing developers to write programs for GNOME using Java and the GTK cross-platform widget toolkit.

Development

Main article: List of language bindings for GTK

Originally released on 8 October 1999 as version 0.2, it included the first bindings for Gnome and GTK. Until version 2.0, java-gnome was written by a group of online contributors. Development of this codebase by 5 successive teams continued up to version 2.16.2 supporting GTK 2.6, after which development ceased for several years, and was ultimately discontinued.

The current version, 4.0, was originally an internal project of Operational Dynamics, a change management consultancy group. The 2.0 and 4.0 versions have similar APIs, but specific names (of e.g. packages, classes, and methods) are different, and internal code in 4.0 is encapsulated and not externally visible.

The project is currently maintained by "java gnome Hackers". The leader of this latest team is Andrew Cowie, one of the principal architects for the java-gnome project.

Functions

Java-gnome provides access to various GNOME libraries using idiomatic class-based bindings. The provided libraries in version 4.0 include:

• GTK - The widget toolkit itself.
• GDK - Contains low level drawing primitives. The majority of drawing is done by Cairo.
• Glib and Gobject - Containers for the rest of infrastructure that allow the use of OOP.
• Pango - Text layout engine.
• ATK - Accessibility toolkit.
• GtkSourceView - Source code highlighter.
• LibNotify - Warning notifier.
• GtkSpell - Spellchecker.
• LibUnique - Enforces that only one instance of a program is open simultaniously.

Support

Java-gnome is only supported in Linux and Unix distributions, unlike most other GTK bindings that are supported by other operating systems. Distribution specific instructions are available for:

• Gentoo linux
• Arch linux
• Debian linux
• Ubuntu linux

Semi-finished instructions are available for Open Solaris and Fedora Core Linux distributions.

Licensing

Java-gnome is free software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.

Example

To compile a java-gnome class, it is necessary to add the gtk-4.1.jar jar in the classpath. The jar is available on Debian (and all Debian-based distributions) in the libjava-gnome-java package, which can be found in the official repositories (the jar is installed under the /usr/share/java path).

java-gnome GtkExample

package org.wikipedia.javagnome.example;

import org.gnome.gdk.Event;
import org.gnome.gtk.Gtk;
import org.gnome.gtk.Widget;
import org.gnome.gtk.Window;
import org.gnome.gtk.WindowPosition;
/**
 * Java-Gnome GTK Example
 * inspired official site java-gnome.sourceforge.net
 */
public class GdkSimple extends Window {
    public GdkSimple() {
        setTitle("Example");
        connect((DeleteEvent)(source, event) -> {
            Gtk.mainQuit();
            return false;
        });
        setDefaultSize(250, 150);
        setPosition(WindowPosition.CENTER);
        show();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Gtk.init(args);
        new GdkSimple(); 
        Gtk.main(); 
    } 
}

See also

• GTK
• Clutter

External links

• The java-gnome language bindings project