MyJXTA 2.3.2 has been released as a component of the freshly minted JXTA 2.3.2 quarterly build on the heels of a successful JXTA 2.3.2b BugDay. Since JXTA BugDay last, oh, all of 1 week ago, a number of bugs have been fixed with the most relevant being secure 1to1 chat. Alot of work has gone into MyJXTA over the last couple of weeks the results of which are starting to resonate nicely based upon new and old MyJXTA users alike. We are also signing up new contributors at a healthy clip which is always fun. New eyes. New ideas.

Having reached a reasonable milestone and being a firm believer the idea that "a picture is worth a bunch of words" I decided to refresh the MyJXTA screenshots, 41 to be exact, covering the entire feature set during the process. Further, I placed copy of the (wip) application help page online making it a bit more visible and accessible for those that have yet to run MyJXTA. The screenshots cover the following features:

• initial configuration
• menubar and popup menus
• preferences (ie text-to-speech, prefuse, eliza, etc)
• JXTA resource quick search and advanced search
• JXTA resource import and export functions
• numerous drag-and-drop features
• text/html and text/plain modal chat editor
• full html chat dialog support
• JXTA Shell integration
• content delegation to user's browser
• multiple deployment models with a preference towards JNLP
• full stack runs on JRE 1.5
• extensible and pluggable architecture
• localizable
• themeable
• and more ...

With MyJXTA 2.3.2 launched unto the world we are now sharing ideas as to what features to take on for the next go around. As such, this a great time to join the project, should you have interest, and consider participating, sharing ideas, learning, sling some code, scratch an itch, etc. With that, here is my "MyJXTA Christmas Wish List," being the holiday season and all, noting that these ideas are captured in both the project readme.txt and associated project issues database:

Preferences: We need to both broaden the contextual preferences model and diffuse the touchpoints throughout the app in as seemless manner as possible. Doing so will really bring dimension and personalization, ie ownership, to the MyJXTA user as the architecture completely allows for contextual and tunable "dialog" filters and listeners that are at present largely constrained behind a flat dialog sheet. My thoughts are to consider something along the lines of firefox which is a tree of panels which appear to be easy to navigate and largely extensible. That and preferences should likely be hooked into the relevant tasks with examples being the Chat Dialog panes.

Localization: All resources in MyJXTA are managed via a PropertyResourceBundle text.properties file per the recommendations of John O'Conner (thx joconner). Over time a dozen or so localized version of the file have been contributed to MyJXTA but we have had to "flush the cache," so to speak, given some of the files were corrupted on import (my bad) and that we have expand the dataset significantly as of late. As such, we would love to collect a new and broader set of localized MyJXTA files then before. To get involved and helps us with the localization work please consider one of the following paths:

• signing up as a project member and contributing directly
• grab a copy of the text.properties file and send your localized contribution to dev@myjxta2.jxta.org indicating which ISO Language Code and ISO Country Code your work covers ... and I'll work with joconner to make sure we get the files incorporated correctly
• run MyJXTA and search for the "text.properties" Share in the default "root" group aptly named "MyJXTA" and submit either via MyJXTA Share or dev@myjxta2.jxat.org as instructed above.

Your help in this regard is hugely appreciated!

Plugins: It is time to re-enable the "Plugin" menu option, dust off the existing code and start playing with ideas on how to enable various JXTA apps to leverage and build upon MyJXTA's core, that being the "JXTA Network Resources" context. The earlier plugin code worked but in building it out we realized the "internal architecture" wasn't comprehensive enough in order to provide a consistent and intuitive interface to plugin providers. With MyJXTA 2.3.2 and the adoption of classic control and view interfaces this is no longer a concern. By the way, the MyJXTA view interface is Swing agnostic by design as it has been used by some to deploy MyJXTA proper under alternative windowing frameworks. Back to plugins. At least two people have pinged me about this idea as of late and more have brought it up in passing time and time again. With MyJXTA 2.3.2 we are in a position to make this happen ... to the extent the even the Chat Dialog panel can (and should) be considered a plugin. I have other applications in mind that would fit this model as well. As such I suspect it is very much worth exploring further.

Graphics: While the included icons and the like are nice and to a degree themeable they just don't feel consistent, from a size and metaphor perspective. Knowing that I am "graphically challanged," to be polite, and as such I fully and truly appreciate concise, artful and meaningful icons ... optimally badgeable icons. We need to think about this area as we are now in a position to express much more state then we currently do with examples being online state, status (eg otp), authentication, security, credentials, profiles, etc. All of this changing data and state is best expressed, as I see it, via consistent icons with relevant badges. Besides, it would be so cool!

IM Protocol: XMMP. Gateways. Enough said.

UML: Generate and publish a UML snap of MyJXTA as it should prove insightful.

Maven: Get the Maven builds operational.

Prefuse: Do more prefuse magic.

If you happen to have ideas on how best to contribute and/or expand this "wish list" feel free to ping the dev@myjxta2.jxta.org list where "any and all" ideas are welcomed!

Come in out of the cold. Get Connected!

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Love And Rockets/Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven/Haunted When The Minutes Drag