I just noticed, that I forgot to provide some solutions (tools) for the (I think) most tricky problem of JAVA world: “how to bundle and run a java program in a user friendly way?”.

Back in the days there was the good old batch script (I have already posted something related to this here), but that’s history…

Nowadays the spotlight is on executable wrappers, which let you bundle your java app into a standalone good old exe. Using these you can avoid those jvm version problems and many others which appeared in the batch start era…

Here are some of the Executable Wrappers I ran into (I also used them with success):

Launch4j

URL: http://launch4j.sourceforge.net

Launch4j is a cross-platform tool for wrapping Java applications distributed as jars in lightweight Windows native executables. The executable can be configured to search for a certain JRE version or use a bundled one, and it’s possible to set runtime options, like the initial/max heap size. The wrapper also provides better user experience through an application icon, a native pre-JRE splash screen, a custom process name, and a Java download page in case the appropriate JRE cannot be found.

JSmooth

URL: http://jsmooth.sourceforge.net/

JSmooth is a Java Executable Wrapper. It creates native Windows launchers (standard .exe) for your java applications. It makes java deployment much smoother and user-friendly, as it is able to find any installed Java VM by itself.
When no VM is available, the wrapper can automatically download and install a suitable JVM, or simply display a message or redirect the user to a web site.
JSmooth provides a variety of wrappers for your java application, each of them having their own behaviour: Choose your flavour!

Well, that is it for the moment.

If you have found and used some other tools like the ones above, please post a comment, and I will update this list.

Let us provide some help for the future JAVA developers…

’till next time,
Happy coding

A nice to have a look at and use Swing toolkit:

“OpenSwing is an open-source suite of advanced graphics components based on Swing toolkit: these components are more sophisticated of those provided with Swing and can be manipolated directly inside the UI designer of the IDE.
It is also a framework that provides data binding mechanism between components and data model, based on the MVC paradigm. Data model is based on Java Beans (POJOs) and it is supported in all OpenSwing components, such as Grid control or components container.”

URL: http://oswing.sourceforge.net/

I found a nice application for those who whant to have their own music server.

“Ampache is a Web-based Audio file manager. It is implemented with MySQL, and PHP. It allows you to view, edit, and play your audio files via the web. It has support for playlists, artist and album views, album art, random play, playback via Http/On the Fly Transcoding and Downsampling, Vote based playback, Mpd and Icecast, Integrated Flash Player, as well as per user themes and song play tracking. You can also Link multiple Ampache servers togeather using XML-RPC. Ampache supports GETTEXT translations and has a full translation of many languages”

Check it out…

URL: http://www.ampache.org/ 

Yet another free tool for You:

WinMerge is an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determing what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.

URL: http://www.winmerge.org/

I found another free tool for you…

SQuirreL SQL Client is a graphical Java program that will allow you to view the structure of a JDBC compliant database, browse the data in tables, issue SQL commands etc…

This tool is much more advanced than the DBInspector which I have made.

URL:http://www.squirrelsql.org/

I found a funny article published by Mike Duncan (i think) on his blog http://www.mikeduncan.com/, called
15 -hot- tools that made me a coding Paris Hilton. It’s about some nice apps he tries to use which make his day job to feel like Paris Hilton’s (or something…. ).

Even if the main taught behind the article didn’t catch me, I did found some useful things in it. Here is a list of some nice apps (free of course) Mike lists in his article, which may be useful someday for us developers:
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