Java SE 6 Developer Preview 9 Release Notes

Ooo nice - it must be Apple Release Week - a new Java SE6 preview release - which can now be set as the primary VM.

New features in this preview:

• AppleScript is a supported javax.script scripting language
• New API in com.apple.eawt.Application:
  • Get and set the Application Dock icon
  • Set a badge label on the Dock icon
  • Set the Dock menu
  • Open the native system help viewer if your application has a help bundle
• New API in com.apple.eio.FileManager:
  • getPathToApplicationBundle() obtains the path to the currently running Java application package.
• GraphicsConfiguration.getNormalizingTransform() now returns a transform value that represents the physical size of the attached monitor.
• The system focus ring color can now be obtained using: UIManager.getColor(“Focus.color”);
• Aqua-style title-less group borders can now be obtained using: UIManager.getBorder(“InsetBorder.aquaVariant”);
• Java SE 6 can now be set as the primary Java VM, and selected for use with applets. Note that you must be using a web browser using a 64-bit Intel version of WebKit for applets to work. Java SE 5 will be used if the browser does not support the selected version of Java.
• Java application bundles that want to use Java 6 are no longer required to use the JVMArchs key. Specifying 1.6* or 1.6+ as the JVMVersion is sufficient for selecting Java 6 to be used in your application.
  
• The javax.smartcardio API is present and works as expected on other platforms.
• Java DTrace probes are supported.
• A refreshed implementation of the Aqua Look-and-Feel, designed to work with a User Display Scale Factor greater than 1.0. This is the same Look and Feel provided in J2SE 5.0 for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Please see Tech note 2196: New Control Styles available within J2SE 5.0 on Mac OS X 10.5 for more information about new client properties available in this implementation of the Aqua Look and Feel. Any use of the legacy Aqua Look-and-Feel classes is deprecated.
• Additional per-window client properties. Please see New Window Client Properties.
• Splash screen support for bundled applications. The Info.plist’s Java dictionary has a new SplashFile key with a string value of a path to the image or Jar containing the splash screen image. The $APP_PACKAGE and $JAVAROOT expansion macros can be used.
• The default image during a drag is now scaled to a maximum of 128 pixels in any direction. This value can be set via the apple.awt.dnd.defaultDragImageSize System Property. The value should be greater than 0.

— Java SE 6 Developer Preview 9 Release Notes

One really nice thing to see here is the implementation of Apple Script as a javax.scripting language:

import javax.script.*;

public class SayHello {
        public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {
                String script = "say \"Hello from Java\"";
                
                ScriptEngineManager mgr = new ScriptEngineManager();
                ScriptEngine engine = mgr.getEngineByName("AppleScript");
                engine.eval(script);
        }
}

Using the simple setJDK script I now have SE6 as my default VM from the command line, however - changing the "Java Application Runtime Settings" to use 6 by default seems to crash IDEA, however Moneydance and other applications (so far) seem to run fine.

tags: java  apple  

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