java-gnome 4.0
These are the Java bindings for GTK and GNOME! Featuring a robust engineering design, completely generated internals, a lovingly crafted layer presenting the public API, and steadily increasing coverage of the underlying libraries.
You can use java-gnome to develop sophisticated user interfaces for Linux applications so that they richly integrate with the GNOME Desktop while leveraging the power of the Java language and your expertise with it.
Overview
Making GTK and GNOME approachable from Java. That's what we do! Still
confused? :) No problem; the objectives page explains in greater detail.
If you're new to java-gnome, then you want to jump straight to the documentation section for everything you need to get started.
The latest release notes are always available in the NEWS file; if you're already developing
applications that use java-gnome 4.0, that's where you want to look to catch up
on the latest changes. Other top level meta files include
README,
HACKING,
AUTHORS, and
LICENCE.
Rationale
We believe that while the web is ideal for offering services, only carefully tailored desktop applications can provide a truly rich user experience that is both responsive and usable. Our choice of the GNOME Desktop is due to our belief that it provides a great choice for long term growth. With a vibrant and cosmopolitan user and developer community, GNOME is a broad platform that has already proved itself suitable to widely diverse requirements ranging from corporate desktops to embedded devices across its international audience.
java-gnome 4.0 was originally an initiative of Operational Dynamics, a Change Management consultancy active in the IT operations space. Although we started using java-gnome in order to write tools to enable our clients to define and work through procedures to successfully execute massive changes and upgrades, we now find ourselves using java-gnome to write quality GNOME programs for many aspects of our business and personal lives.
We're pleased to have been joined by dozens of developers from around the world who are likewise excited about the opportunity to write rich GNOME applications using modern tools in a powerful language unencumbered by patents held by companies who want to destroy the Free and Open Source Software movement.
java-gnome 4.0 is now a truly global effort with contributors from around the world. There is still much work to be done, of course, so please feel welcome to join in and contribute!
Warning
Please note that we will not be declaring API stable (which, under the GNOME release definitions inevitably means "frozen forever") until java-gnome 4.2.0; method signatures are subject to change. This gives us an opportunity to learn from mistakes and to ensure the bindings reach the extreme quality and usability standards we aspire to. That said, we do our best to keep things stable. We have large bodies of software that use java-gnome so don't worry; we aren't gratuitously breaking things. But if we have a bug which needs a signature change, we will fix it, and not attempt to paper over the problem.
