TimeFinder – Powerful Optimization Algorithm, RIA and more

TimeFinder is an Open Source Timetable Optimizer for universities and schools, which uses the Spring Rich Client project to create an easy to use application with a nice user interface, a database and … more bla bla …

ok, it is a bit dingy headline and a more dingy introduction, but I would like to invite you to test the latest development version v4 of TimeFinder now! And without such a headline you woudn’t have read this. And I feel that I would like to release TimeFinder in the next weeks, so I need some beta testers.

Get the dev version of TimeFinder here, double click the jar (optionally read the documentation for v1) and tell me:

1. If you understand the purpose of TimeFinder from the website
2. If you understand the user interface and how you can insert data
3. If you find a bug
4. If you need other features

Any feedback is welcome! Please contact me at peathal AT yahoo |dot| de, post an email to the mailing list or simply leave a comment here.

Quicktip: Scroll Within top

There are two solutions to scroll within the linux command top (shows memory+cpu consumption of all processes):

• Either install htop (sudo apt-get install htop)
• Or do

  top -n 1 -b

Quicktip: Upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10

I simply did (Go to the full upgrade instructions for more information.)

sudo do-release-upgrade

and clicked “ok” two times. That was all!

Within ~40-60 minutes (while I did something in parallel) it reinstalled a lot of packages, the kernel, …

Additional Info:

• Jdk 5 is not longer supported from sun and because of this it is not available in apt-get. So you have to install it manually.
• There is no Grip  Could I use KaudioCreator as alternative?
• Couldn’t upgrade kbluetooth4.(?) I reinstalled this … now it works
• Upgrading the VirtualBox driver was necessary, but easy:
  sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
• I had to re-disable the annoying sound on the login screen, but there is no sound entry under System->Preferences ?
  But this helped: sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-sounds
• I had to edit the color in the video player because of a blue breath: Edit->Preferences->Display->Reset to Default

Thats all! I like updating the ubuntu/debian way

Ubuntu 9.10 finally released

Get It or Upgrade!

Or see all Features / Features for 9.10 !

Griffon 0.2 released

Griffon 0.2 released!

Do you know Griffon? No? In short: Griffon is a Grails like framework for writing RIAs on the JVM using Groovy.

Look here for more information:

• quick start
• user guide
• at dzone
• several other resources

(And here a link to  a nice groovy resource)

Link of Swing 2.0? And google collection description …

Just two links:

• PureSwing Description taken from the homepage: PureSwing is Java GUI library with user API nearly identical to Swing GUI toolkit. It’s based on GNU Classpath’s reimplementation of Java Swing classes.
  Nice:
  • See the homepage for a feature overview! It is more a “removing overview” e.g.: removed AWT dependency!
  • Joining the project is very easy: just send in the patch and if it’s good it will be commited.
  • License: PureSwing is distributed under GPLv2+ with Classpath exception (allows linking with proprietary programs). This license is effectivelly less restrictive than LGPL, …
  • There is support for NetBeans GUI builder
    

  Size for version 20091025: 2.1 MB (core); 2.8 MB (dependencies)

• Google collections overview
  

IntelliJ Platform and IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition are Open source now!

Check this out!

Now Eclipse and NetBeans gets some really nice competitor !

Dependency Injection in Java!

Now the JSR330 is final! This was really fast (because of JEE 6)!

From the JSR:

This JSR will standardize:

• A set of annotations for use on injectable classes
• A typesafe, user-friendly injector configuration API that provides an integration point for higher level dependency injection configuration approaches

The code is located at google.

How To Test Against Deadlocks?

I read an interesting blog entry at Google, where they talk about Thread Weaver (Apache license), which can be used to test against synchronization issues.

VL Docking and other window docking managers for Java

Maybe you already know it;

there are several docking managers and since April 2009 (3.0) you can include VL Docking for free even in commercial applications, because its LGPL!

The good thing about VL Docking is (and of MyDoggy by the way …)  that it is well integrated into the Spring RC project.

More information about VL Docking

All Java docking managers

(look here for an old list)

• MyDoggy LGPL; only jar’s: 0.5 MB
• VL Docking LGPL; 0,4 MB
• NetBeans CDDL/GPL; 4.6 MB (platform.zip)
• Eclipse CPL or EPL ? only swt (?)
• InfoNode GPL or Commercial
• Sanaware GPL or Commercial full zip 0.3MB
• Docking Frames LGPL; 0.7 MB
• Jide commercial; <3MB

Inactive projects

• SwingDocking seems to me fully functional and fast; Apache license 2
• XUI will be further developed here?; MPL; 1.6 MB (XUI-jdk15.zip)
• JDocking CDDL; 1.3 MB (v0.8.zip) the docking part of netbeans
• FlexDock MIT; only jar’s: 0.5 MB
• JRichClient GPL; derivation of flexdock

Please let me know if you know other libraries which support ‘window docking’.