Joshua Marinacci's Blog

You vote for your favorite article and I'll write it!

I'm thinking of working on another article or two over the next few weeks, but I don't know what to write about. Oh sure, I have lots of ideas, but I don't know what's most interesting to you. Ultimately my writing competes with about 4.8 billion other things for your valuable attention, so I only want to write the things that you want to read. Rather than speculate endlessly about this I've decided to take it directly to the people and have you to vote for your favorite idea.

Here are the rules. You get three votes. Post the three articles you'd like to spend your votes on. You can also make comments, clarifications, or suggestions for other articles, but it's not required. On Monday I'll tally the votes and start a-writin'. Thanks!

Article ideas:

Using the Swing App Framework & Beans Binding Frameworks in NetBeans 6.

There's already some great articles on using the app framework and beans binding (here, here and here) with more probably coming from their respective authors. What would you like me to write about? Some step by step example apps? A complete local database driven app? A webservices driven app (like connecting to weather data, Flickr, or the Google calendar APIs)? Maybe a blog editor that talks to blogger.com or movable-type like blog services? Or perhaps show how to visually build an RSS reader using ROME?

What's new in NetBeans 6.0:

This would be a more general article on what's new in NetBeans 6.0. I would touch briefly on the Swing App Framework and Beans Binding, but also cover general improvements to the editor, the form builder, the bundled database, webstart, and version control improvments. I'll only cover desktop app and general Java development since I'm not as familar with Java EE, profiling, debuggin, UML, JavaME, and the many other things you can do with NetBeans. I'll leave that to other people who are more skilled in those areas.

Using the JXMapViewer:

How to use the JXMapViewer in your own apps. JXMapViewer is a Swing component that lets you embed maps in your application. This will cover basic usage, writing custom overlays with mouseovers and heads up info, hooking into a new mapserver, and binding it to other datasources for mashups. (like my cool weather demo). Anything else you'd like to see here?

Intro to Painters:

Covers both the theory of Painters from SwingLabs, as well as dig down into how they work and some cool things you can do with them (overlays and error indication as well as component skinning). Then finish with a collection of cool painters you can reuse.

Having fun with JavaFX Script.

This article will not go through the language features of JavaFX Script as many other articles have done [see here, here, and here]. Instead this will be task oriented article. I will build several small demo apps, leading up to a full puzzle game with effects, transitions, and scoring.

Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer.

This article will explain the useful basics of graphic design and give you lots of tips you can use right now to make your apps look better. This article will cover general techniques that apply not only to Swing development, but also Java FX Script, desktop publishing, web design, and pretty much any other place where information is communicated visually. I'll cover color usage, layout, typography, graphics & icons, and most importantly color. And of course color.

*Your Article Here*

Whatever you think would be cool. Solr/Lucene, Slide/Webdav, Http Commons..? The sky's the limit. I really want your ideas and feedback. Thanks.

   - Josh

Comments

• JavaFX Script :-) (but I must force me for not asking about the JXMapViewer, my favourite work of yours).

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on September 20, 2007 at 03:06 PM

• JXMapViewer! I am very close to starting work on investigating merging JXMapViewer with an application I am working on, so it would be perfect timing :-)

  Please please please! :-)

  Posted by: jogiles on September 20, 2007 at 03:43 PM

• hi joshua,

  thanks.

  "*Your Article Here*
  Whatever you think would be cool. Solr/Lucene,"

  integrating Lucene with Hibernate (NOT using hibernate search or compass) BUT to give a good tutorial on how to do it by yourself. THEN as part 2, use Hibernate Search AND/OR compass.

  thank you,

  BR,
  ~A

  Posted by: anjanb2 on September 20, 2007 at 04:08 PM

• anjanb2, could you clarify what you mean? What sort of app would use hibernate + lucene? Would you store the docs in lucene but metadata in hibernate? How would this app appear to the user?

  Posted by: joshy on September 20, 2007 at 04:14 PM

• "Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer" would be very nice. Also I would like to have a little fun with JavaFX Script.

  Posted by: fatihc on September 20, 2007 at 04:17 PM

• 
  Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  JavaFX Script
  Intro to Painters
  

  Posted by: quelgar on September 20, 2007 at 05:34 PM

• 1. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  2. Intro to Painters
  3. Using the JXMapViewer

  Posted by: tmky2k on September 20, 2007 at 06:10 PM

• 1. Intro to Painters
  2. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  3. Using the JXMapViewer
  

  Posted by: stevenmwall on September 20, 2007 at 08:21 PM

• Do a series :). Start with the app framework, then show how the same app could be improved with JavaFX, then tidy the whole thing up by following those tips for engineers. I think writing a complete, Derby-driven app that's downloadable as a JNLP would be great to see, for example. Cheers! Patrick

  Posted by: pdoubleya on September 20, 2007 at 09:23 PM

• I think "Intro to Painters" then "graphics design for the engineer". Not sure about the third.

  Posted by: luggypm on September 21, 2007 at 12:06 AM

• 1. New Suggestion:
  Creating nice feedback to DnD WITH Java 6: take Guy's ideas from his CollageDemo (specially the transparent picture under the mouse while dragging) but use the DnD stuff from Java 6 for JTable (or even JXTable). I don't really know if Java 6 makes a difference or not...

  2. Painters Intro

  3. Graphic Design

  Posted by: agusmba on September 21, 2007 at 12:56 AM

• Sorry for the mess, here it goes again...

  New Suggestion:
  Creating nice feedback to DnD WITH Java 6: take Guy's ideas from his CollageDemo (specially the transparent picture under the mouse while dragging) but use the DnD stuff from Java 6 for JTable (or even JXTable). I don't really know if Java 6 makes a difference or not...
  Painters Intro
  Graphic Design
  

  Posted by: agusmba on September 21, 2007 at 01:00 AM

• 1. Using the JXMapViewer
  2. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  3. Intro to Painters
  

  Posted by: josecefe on September 21, 2007 at 01:50 AM

• 1. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer.
  2. Using the Swing App Framework & Beans Binding Frameworks in NetBeans 6
  3. Intro to Painters

  Posted by: niallp on September 21, 2007 at 03:54 AM

• Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer - please.

  Posted by: paulmfarrar on September 21, 2007 at 04:48 AM

• Hi Joshua

  1. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer.
  2. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer. (three votes right? ;-)
  3. Intro to Painters

  Posted by: gath55 on September 21, 2007 at 05:33 AM

• 
  Why the Swing example demo code in the JDK is so mediocre and we couldn't be bother to demo best practice
  Why the examples in the Swing tutorial are so mediocre and don't follow basic Java coding conventions
  Ten years of paying lip-service to desktop integration and just delivering that lousy system tray access
  

  Posted by: ewin on September 21, 2007 at 07:05 AM

• I'm very interested in seeing JXMapViewer in action. It could replace this old JLoox library we user at work. The kind of stuff I would like to see examples of are:

  
  Loading map data from a local resource. (Shape files?)
  Placing custom icons/images at a lat/long position.
  Interacting with custom icons/images.
  Drawing lines between icons/images.
  Interacting with lines drawn.
  Saving and loading the current view window position.

  
  I don't really know what is and is not possible with JXMapViewer so if I'm asking for the moon, please ignore me.

  Thanks

  Posted by: aberrant on September 21, 2007 at 07:19 AM

• 1. Using the Swing App Framework & Beans Binding Frameworks in NetBeans 6
  It would be VERY interesting to have an article about an, f,.i, catalog CRUD application, assuming the catalog may have some thousands items. How to search and quickly find some item to modify, how to browse items without having to load all in memory, etc. Catalog items attributes should be integer, texts, dates, images, etc.. Usage of lookup tables (referential integrity on db) would be great, too. A real-world application .
  Most articles are about very simple data models. Many developers need to know how to use that wonderful NB6 new features in a real world and this article could be the answer.

  2. Using the JXMapViewer
  That could be very useful too, if talks about how to use JXMapViewer fetching data from a postgis database : how to setup a JXMapViewer and a provider to access and interact with a postgis database and WMS server, for instance.

  3. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  

  Posted by: dags on September 21, 2007 at 07:43 AM

• 
  JavaFX Script - Final should be JWS or executable JAR
  Painters
  JXMapViewer
  

  Posted by: smbell on September 21, 2007 at 07:52 AM

• 1. A good example of javafx script using something like jfreechart and a time line of the release of javafx runtimes for firefox, ie, mobile cdc and cldc, to demonstrate that we can all live the dream.

  2. Audio and video using javafx script.

  Posted by: buzzheavyyear on September 21, 2007 at 08:34 AM

• 1) Having fun with JavaFX Script
  2) Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  3) News and updates on AWT

  Posted by: marcio15dez on September 21, 2007 at 09:18 AM

• Hi Josh,

  1. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer.
  Why? Because then we no longer need to buy books written by Chet and Romain. Then we can invent all this crazy good looking effects by our selfs. And because it is hard to find something useful about this on the net.

  
  2. Intro to Painters
  Why? Because we will need this when we have read your article about
  Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer.

  
  3. Using the Swing App Framework & Beans Binding Frameworks in Eclipse.
  Why? Because doing this in Netbeans is a piece of cake ;-)

  And by the way thanks a lot for writing all that fantastic articles!

  - Bernd

  Posted by: hexer on September 21, 2007 at 11:13 AM

• There is my votes:
  1 . Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  2. Using the Swing App Framework & Beans Binding Frameworks in NetBeans 6
  3. Having fun with JavaFX Script.
  
  Thanks, good luck.

  Posted by: elias_mello on September 21, 2007 at 12:19 PM

• Intro to Painters. But that needs more than an article. It needs a proper tutorial that officially resides somewhere. Otherwise it's just not going to see the use it promises.

  Posted by: sumitkishore on September 21, 2007 at 01:38 PM

• Anything applicable to Java game development, graphically speaking! The JavaFX puzzle game would be a good start, but talking about some of the more advanced stuff, even if it's just a status update, would be nice.

  Posted by: gerryg on September 21, 2007 at 04:20 PM

• Having fun with JavaFX Script! :)

  Posted by: brunogh on September 22, 2007 at 06:29 AM

• I'd like to see articles about the swing app/binding and graphics design for the engineer. That would be most applicable to my needs.

  I just hate having to do all the moving of data in and out of fields by and and I'm not too fond of any binding framework I've seen so far.

  I'd love for you to discuss the binding framework in the context of a cancel operation - the user edits some fields and then cancels the changes - how does the binding framework handle that?

  Posted by: trcorbin on September 22, 2007 at 07:18 AM

• "Doing away with Netbeans, why not using Netbeans as the basis for tutorials is the best choice".

  Posted by: jwenting on September 22, 2007 at 10:34 PM

• I really hope you can open view for Javolution.

  Posted by: qinxian on September 23, 2007 at 11:45 PM

• 1. Having fun with JavaFX Script.

  2. Intro to Painters:

  3. Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer.

  As for ideas, I am not allowed to think for myself, thank you.

  Posted by: gupnorth on September 24, 2007 at 02:12 AM

• My "votes":
  Using the JXMapViewer
  Graphic Design for the Complete and Utter Engineer
  Intro to Painters

  Posted by: martram on September 24, 2007 at 02:27 AM

• 1. Intro to Painters
  2. DnD with Java6 and animated drag/drop feedback
  3. App Framework, BeansBinding with JSON example

  Posted by: namestka on September 24, 2007 at 09:06 AM

• 1.Using the Swing App Framework & Beans Binding Frameworks in NetBeans 6.

  Posted by: nemesis666 on September 25, 2007 at 01:18 AM

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