Packt launch 5th annual Open Source Awards

Birmingham, UK. 9th August 2010

The 2010 Open Source Awards was launched today by Packt, inviting people to visit www.PacktPub.com and submit nominations for their favorite Open Source project. Now in its fifth year, the Award has been adapted from the established Open Source CMS Award with the wider aim of encouraging, supporting, recognizing and rewarding all Open Source projects.

WordPress won the 2009 Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award in what was a very close contest with MODx and SilverStripe. While MODx was the first runner up, SilverStripe, a Most Promising CMS Award winner in 2008, made its way to the second runner up position in its first year in the Open Source CMS Award final.

The 2010 Award will feature a prize fund of $24,000 with several new categories introduced. While the Open Source CMS Award category will continue to recognize the best content management system, Packt is introducing categories for the Most Promising Open Source Project, Open Source E-Commerce Applications, Open Source JavaScript Libraries and Open Source Graphics Software. CMSes that won the Overall CMS Award in previous years will continue to compete against one another in the Hall of Fame CMS category.

These new categories will ensure that the Open Source Awards is the ultimate platform to recognise excellence within the community while supporting projects both new and old. “We believe that the adaption of the Award and the new categories will provide a new level of accessibility, with the Award recognizing a wider range of Open Source projects; both previous winners while at the same time, encouraging new projects” said Julian Copes, organizer of this year’s Awards.

Packt has opened up nominations for people to submit their favorite Open Source projects for each category at www.PacktPub.com/open-source-awards-home. The top five in each category will go through to the final, which begins in the last week of September. For more information on the categories, please visit Packt’s website www.PacktPub.com/blog/packt’s-2010-open-source-awards-announcement

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/03/16/html5-hardware-accelerated-first-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx

This is great news for SVG designers or developers, because soon all major browsers will or already support SVG. Some already support SVG (Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera) and Microsoft Internet Explorer will follow the suit.

Step 1: Create ComponentOrientation support class

This step is optional, but make the testing easier, because it use the value component orientation from System.getProperty(”..”), and use auto (based on Locale.getDefault() if nothing specified.

    public class ComponentOrientationSupport {
 
        private ComponentOrientationSupport() {
            throw new Error("ComponentOrientationSupport is a utility class for static methods"); // NOI18N
        }   
 
        /** 
         * Return component orientation base on the value of
         * {@code System.getProperty("alkitab.orientation")} <br/>
         * If it is not specified it will return ComponentOrientation.LEFT_TO_RIGHT
         * Possible value are:
         * <code>
         * - auto (Default), automatic setting based on Locale.getDefault()
         * - ltr, force to use Left to Right orientation
         * - rtl, force to use Right to Left orientation
         * </code>
         * @return ComponentOrientation
         */
        public static ComponentOrientation getComponentOrientation() {
            ComponentOrientation orient = ComponentOrientation.getOrientation(Locale.getDefault());
 
            String str = System.getProperty("component.orientation");
 
            if (str != null) {
                if (str.equals("ltr")) {
                    orient = ComponentOrientation.LEFT_TO_RIGHT;
                } else if (str.equals("rtl")) {
                    orient = ComponentOrientation.RIGHT_TO_LEFT;
                }
            }
 
            return orient;
        }
 
        /** Apply the getComponentOrientation to the specified container
         * @param container Container
         */
        public static void applyComponentOrientation(Container container) {
            container.applyComponentOrientation(getComponentOrientation());
        }
    }

Step 2: Apply the component orientation for the MainWindow

In order to apply the component orientation to the MainWindow, you need to do that in the ModuleInstall eg:

    @Override
    public  void restored() {
        super.restored();
 
        // initialize the orientation
        String orientationKey = "component.orientation";
        String strOrientation = System.getProperty(orientationKey);
        if (strOrientation == null) {
            strOrientation = "auto";
        } else {
            strOrientation = strOrientation.trim().toLowerCase();
        }
        System.setProperty(orientationKey, strOrientation); // re-setting the System property to the correct value
 
        // do something else
        //....
 
        WindowManager.getDefault().invokeWhenUIReady(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                ComponentOrientationSupport.applyComponentOrientation(WindowManager.getDefault().getMainWindow());
 
                // do something else
                //....
            }
        });
    }

Step 3: Apply the component orientation for each TopComponent

You need to apply component orientation for each TopComponent you have eg:

    public final class MyTopComponent extends TopComponent {
        private MyTopComponent() {
            initComponents();
            setName(...);
            setToolTipText(...);
 
            // do something else
            //....
 
            ComponentOrientationSupport.applyComponentOrientation(this);
        }
    }

Step 4: Testing

Because it is using System.getProperty(”..”), so it is easy to test the UI. You only need to assign that component.orientation=auto|ltr|rtl to the environment. In Netbeans Platform based application you can do that in the suite project.properties by adding

run.args.extra=-J-Dcomponent.orientation=rtl ...your other things eg: -J-Xms64m -J-Xmx128m ...

Or for deploying you can use ../etc/yourapp.conf as above. Or if you are not setting it up, it will use “auto” by default which is based on Locale.getDefault()

There are a lot of them from various categories: Aerospace & Defence, Oil & Gas Services, Geospatial, Bio & Chemoinformatics, Scientific Modelers, Monitors, & Analyzers, Healthcare, Network Management & Communications Systems, Retail, Graphic Design & Image Manipulation, Music & Entertainment, Software Development.

So let’s me iterate again (or read this instead) why it is good idea to use RCP (Rich Client Platform) vs Java plus libraries. For me Rich Client Platform (RCP) is a set of libraries with tight integration, it was build from ground up to work together as a platform so other application can be build or run on top of it. In contrast, Java plus libraries is a mix and match of libraries to support the application eg: give new features, etc.

One main problem with the mix and match style is because that libraries may not be designed to work together, they could be excellent library on its own, but once they integrated together to form a single system (an application), sometimes it may require some glue or bridge code to make them work together. On the other hands for RCP, these set of libraries will work together since it is designed that way from beginning.

The module some.package.path is not a friend of some-path\some.jar

So what is friend dependency anyways. Friend Dependency is caused by a Module that have an API which its author is not yet comfortable exposing to just anyone, because it might not be fully stabilized yet. In this case, the module with the API can declare some public packages, but also stipulate that only a predefined list of “friend modules” are permitted to use them. The friend modules just declare a regular specification version dependency, but unknown modules are not permitted to use any packages from the API module.

So in order to declare a dependency to that module, you need to use an implementation dependency. Please read the following Netbeans Wiki Dev FAQ on how to declare this implementation dependency and to enable friend dependency.

note: please also understand that implementation dependencies cause special problems for Auto Update. It is explained on the Netbeans Wiki Dev FAQ as well

Because there is already review of this book by Alex Ruiz who focused on pro and cons, so in this review I will focus on the book’s content itself.

Swing Extreme Testing book is come with 311 pages. The chapters structure is nice and follow the logical step and easy to follow. This books use real life application as the example rather than using imaginative sample. The content is very interesting it start with the methodology (Extreme Testing) as the author called. What needs to be tested, who is to write the tests, when they are to be written, so on. Then go to management of test class and test data. And the testing of User Interface itself. This books also describe the technique to test JavaHelp, ResourceBundle Testing, Server and User Interface Testing, and Multiple JVM testings.

In this books, the author present Cyborg, a higher-level wrapper for java.awt.Robot class. This is the tool for user interface testing. The books also discuss some very important techniques for testing Swing applications. These techniques are: how to set up user interfaces in a thread-safe manner, how to find the objects representing particular components on the screen and how to interrogate a component for its state.

The book is closed with flaky test, tests that occasionally fail or do not terminate. As the authors says

“The problem with having flaky tests is that they remove the element of reproducibility from our testing process. If our tests pass, we don’t know whether all the bugs we’re testing against have actually been fixed, or whether they just happened not to manifest themselves in that testing run. If our tests fail, this could be due to either production errors or testing errors, or both. If we can’t be sure of our test results, we can’t be sure of our software.”

Finally, all the tests presented are automated test. This books also contains many tips and trick using real life application (what worked for them and what didn’t). Those tips and tricks itself worth the book.

Some note: I really surprised when book also describe the ResourceBundle and JavaHelp tests.

If you are wondering how do we track Java version, please visit this step by step guide on how to track java version using google analytics at
http://cowwoc.blogspot.com/2008/11/tracking-java-versions-using-google.html

Here is our Java visitor stats, it is fresh from Google Analytics data 05 December 2008 - 05 January 2009

and the corresponding Operating System (OS) stats

Based on the above, Java 1.6_xx seems to have very nice grounds, and the Java 1.5 (9.36%) seems come from Mac OSX (12.90%), not set is probably from visitor who disable javascript (noscript).

The only things that puzzle me is the Java 1.8.0 (6.59%). Where does it come from or is there really a Java 1.8.0 ? If you know where this 1.8.0 come from, please do not hesitate to drop me a note.

Because of the above requirement I need to find a ways to reference or create instance of something from other module in the branding module, so nbres:// protocols was come to rescue.

In the example below, the settings and wstcref file of the TopComponent is located at other module (Core Module) and the layer.xml below is in the Branding module.

<folder name="Windows2">
    <folder name="Components">
        <file name="BookshelfTopComponent.settings" url="nbres:/kiyut/alkitab/windows/BookshelfTopComponent.settings"/>
        <file name="BookNavigatorTopComponent.settings" url="nbres:/kiyut/alkitab/windows/BookNavigatorTopComponent.settings"/>
        <file name="DefinitionsTopComponent.settings" url="nbres:/kiyut/alkitab/windows/DefinitionsTopComponent.settings"/>
        <file name="DailyDevotionsTopComponent.settings" url="nbres:/kiyut/alkitab/windows/DailyDevotionsTopComponent.settings"/>
    </folder> 
    <folder name="Modes">
        <folder name="explorer">
            <file name="BookshelfTopComponent.wstcref" url="nbres:/kiyut/alkitab/windows/BookshelfTopComponent.wstcref">
                <attr name="position" intvalue="100"/>
            </file>
            <file name="BookNavigatorTopComponent.wstcref" url="nbres:/kiyut/alkitab/windows/BookNavigatorTopComponent.wstcref">
                <attr name="position" intvalue="110"/>
            </file>
        </folder>
        ...
    </folder>
</folder>

For the complete example, you can download the complete source code of Alkitab Bible Study (Public Domain) at http://www.kiyut.com/products/alkitab/developer/index.html under source code section.

So now you can track your visitors who have java installed. The nice things regarding this tips and tricks is that this tips also capture the java version eg: Java 1.5, 1.6, etc. So no more wondering or guessing regarding Java installed base.

Since 1998, NetBeans has grown from a student project into an award winning Open Source project, IDE and application platform. With millions of downloads a year worldwide, the NetBeans community boasts an active and diverse following of software developers, students, instructors and partner companies.

For our 10th birthday bash we plan to highlight some of the key initiatives and individuals whose contributions and dedication have kept the NetBeans momentum going strong. There will be unique content—video greetings, community profiles and more—available during the week-long retrospective.

We’ve also come up with a fun way for the community to celebrate with us—the NetBeans Decathlon! Ten interactive activities that let NetBeans users show and share what the NetBeans project means to them.

Participants will be entered to win a cool limited edition NetBeans T-shirt. Stay tuned for details of the Decathlon and the official birthday kickoff!

Visit Netbeans 10th Birthday Celebration Site.