Java desktops links of the week, March 23

There is a huge number of links this week, so let’s get straight into it.

Swing

• The Limewire blog has a post about creating floating panels using the MigLayout .
• A number of people got in touch with me regarding the Chartle project , which allows for charts to be created using a webapp. The user interface is partially built using Swing.
• James Strachan (@jstrachan ) posts that he met James Gosling , and in the course of the discussion James Gosling notes that he is very keen to get JWebPane into the JDK.
• A few weeks back, Željko got in touch with me regarding his Swing project , Revolucion Library , which is an awesome looking media player for Java. He has clearly put a lot of effort into it, and is now sharing with you some of the tricks he learnt. He has two posts, one about the cover gallery he created , and the other about creating a Java-based YouTube video player .
• I was contacted earlier this week by Tim Mouradian regarding his software My Money , which is a commercial project but built entirely using Swing.
• Kirill Grouchnikov (@kirillcool ) has created a new skin for his Substance look and feel project, called Dust .
• In addition to the skin, Kirill has also posted Amber, an application which analyses social trends in various networks (Digg, Twitter, etc), and animates the information using his Trident animation library mentioned last week. This is only very weakly related to Swing, but you should definitely check it out.
• Finally, just before this post went out, Kirill announced he has done a mini-review of the latest release of Woopra client , which is a web analytics tool. Kirill’s mini-review, as with any UI enthusiast, focuses on the polish that this application has in its user interface.

JavaFX

• It’s competition time! Joshua Marinacci (@joshmarinacci ), with the backing of Sun, has announced two JavaFX competitions . There are cash prizes, ranging for $1000 up to $25,000, as well as advanced copies of JavaFX books. Stop reading this post and get coding!
• Ken Orr , never failing to impress, has created a simple JavaFX tray component , which oozes polish.
• Rakesh Menon posts about lighting effects in JavaFX , and has a simple webstart application to let you play with various effects.
• Rakesh , busy as usual, also poses the rhetorical question ‘can JavaFX speak my language’, and then proceeds to answer this by showing how you can get JavaFX to show custom fonts .
• Sergey Malenkov has posted a JavaFX-based fullscreen application that mimics the sidebars offered by Microsoft, Google, etc.
• Jim Conner posts about bindstorming , that is, the issue with using too much binding in a JavaFX script application. He also highlights how it is possible to reduce the use of binding, whilst still retaining the same end result.
• Ravi Dharnikota , on the JavaFX blog, shows how to improve the startup performance of your webstarted JavaFX application .
• Eric posts a JavaFX Bubble Breaker game , including code and a webstart link .
• Jim Weaver posts about including Java3D in your JavaFX application .
• Somewhere I come across the memefx JavaFX controls project . Just a pointer, if you’re going to watch the YouTube video on that page, mute the audio.

That’s it for another Java Desktop links of the week. I have kept the details of each item shorter given the number of links – I hope that is alright with everyone! Have a great week, and keep up the good work progressing the Java desktop!