Modality improvements

In Mustang build 38, the AWT team integrated a major improvement to the Modality system in AWT/Swing. This was a set of RFEs that had about 475 total votes on the Bug Parade. The Modality improvements are significant in that they provide for new modes that were previously not possible from Java Apps, providing more flexibility and improved architecture.

Here are the related RFEs that are part of this work :

4167266 Modal dialogs should be modal per AppContext
4080029 Modal Dialog block input to all frame windows not just its parent.
4813288 Need a way to exempt some windows from disablement when a modal dialog is shown
Motivation

The new AWT modality spec can be seen here :
http://www.java.net/download/jdk6/docs/api/java/awt/doc-files/Modality.html

The Tray API :
This API was developed initially in JDIC and severely refined prior to incorporation into Mustang. There were some deficiencies in the original API that have been fixed in the JDK version.

http://www.java.net/download/jdk6/docs/api/java/awt/SystemTray.html

http://www.java.net/download/jdk6/docs/api/java/awt/TrayIcon.html

You can check out these features and test them out with the latest
Mustang build :

http://www.java.net/download/jdk6/binaries/

More to come.. Stay tuned, there are more new AWT features that will be coming in the next few builds. One of them is native Splash screen support in AWT.

Success of Mustang project

Your evaluation of the Mustang build has enabled us to catch problems in the implementation very quickly. We have had several bugs reported in the Mustang Forums shortly after the features were advertised in various blogs. We were then able to turn around and fix these problems right away. So please help us evaluate these new features by downloading the latest mustang builds.