Early Draft Review: JSR 250 - Common Annotations for the Java Platform   30 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
Sun Microsystems has submitted an early draft of JSR 250 - Common Annotation for the Java Platform to the JCP for review. "This JSR well develop annotations for common semantic concepts in the J2SE and J2EE platforms that apply across a variety of individual technologies. With the addition of JSR 175 (A Metadata Facility for the JavaTM Programming Language) in the Java platform we envision that various JSRs will use annotations to enable a declarative style of programming. It would be unfortunate if these JSRs each independently defined their own annotations for common concepts. It would be especially valuable to have consistency within the J2EE 5.0 component JSRs, but it will also be valuable to allowconsistency between J2EE and J2SE."
Source: Java.net

Another Mozilla Developer Joins Google   30 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
Another Mozilla developer has joined the ranks of Google. This time it is Brian Ryner and the news is broken by Firefox lead Ben Goodger. "Brian has been one of the most crucial elements to the success of Mozilla software over the past few years, with his work all over the Mozilla code - I remember him first adding mousewheel support back in 2000, then moving with tenacity into many other areas of code. Over the past few years Brian has been invaluable to Gecko development, working on many areas that have resulted in performance improvements and new features, while also having time to work on application level features such as the Linux installer, GNOME integration and the password manager. Great to have you on board!"
Source: Java.net

Jakarta Tomcat 5.5.9-alpha   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
The Jakarta Tomcat development team has announced the release of version 5.5.9-alpha. "This build contains numerous bug fixes, documentation updates, and other improvements."

XMLConfigreader 1.0.001 - Initial Release   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
Nicola Asuni has made available the first release, version 1.0.001, of XMLConfigreader. Nicola writes in, "XMLConfigReader is an open-source extension of Java ResourceBundle class to read configuration data directly from an XML file. XMLConfigReader reads structured resource text data from an XML file and store it on a hashtable. The hashtable keys are taken from the value of the first attribute of the elements. The hash table values are hashtables containing the sub-items names as keys and the sub-items data as value."

JasperAssistant 1.5.2   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
Peter Severin has announced version 1.5.2 of JasperAssistant report designer. This version of JasperAssistant adds support for JasperReports 0.6.5.

Groovy 1.0-beta-10   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
The Groovy scripting project for Java has announced the release of version 1.0-beta-10. This package includes some fixed typing problems, improved error messages, better exception handling, and an early access version of a new JSR parser. A full list of bug fixes is also available here.

Novell to Build Services Around JBoss Portal   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
At this past week's Mindshare conference Novell detailed plans to build services around the JBoss Portal product. "As part of its new efforts, Novell has entered into a partnership with JBoss. Novell will offer services to enterprise clients around the JBoss Portal. Novell will also enhance the Web portal software, through independent contributions to the open source product. Novell supports for the JBoss Java application server. The agreement allows Novell wider latitude in creating application around the JEMS server suite."

Spindle 3.1.19 - Tapesry Plugin for Eclipse   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
Tapestry plugin for Eclipse, Spindle, has released version 3.1.19. In addition to some minor bug fixes it has been updated to work with Eclipse 3.0.2.

Wi.Ser 0.6.8   29 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
The Wi.Ser project, a Java/XML server-side GUI-framework working with Swing has released version 0.6.8 with major feature enhancements. "This release implements lazy loading for swing widgets, which means that forms are submitted on demand from the server to the client. This feature brings a significant speed up for swing GUIs and a lower memory footprint. A bug in forEach has been fixed, and forEach is able to match names and tags with regular expressions. The tutorial has been enhanced with two new chapters, and errors in the WebWindow management were corrected. A new widget called templateSection has been added to support embedded HTML."

VLDocking Framework 1.0 - Swing Docking   28 Mar 2005 05:00 GMT
VLSolutions has released their first public version of its Swing Docking Framework. They write in, "Notable features are: Abstract Docking Containers provided with default implementations and Border Docking/ Tabbed Docking / Auto-Hide expandable buttons, a well documented API and tutorial, Look and Feel friendly, and theJava Web Start Demo is a true application (an online forum)."