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| <title>Meet a NetBeans Module Writer: Alex Lam</title> |
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| <h1>Meet a NetBeans Module Writer: Alex Lam</h1> |
| <p><small><a href="mailto:nbdocs_feedback@usersguide.netbeans.org?subject=Feedback:%20Meet%20A%20NetBeans%20Module%20Writer:%20Alex">Feedback</a></small></p> |
| |
| <table width="190" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="right" class="ltblue"> |
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| <tr> |
| <td align="center"><img align="center" src="nbm_interviews/me3.JPG" alt="Alex's picture"> |
| |
| <br><b>Alex Lam</b></td> |
| </tr> |
| |
| <tr> |
| <td> |
| <p>Alex's hot links: |
| <ul><li><a href="http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/">Napkin Look & Feel Homepage</a> |
| <li><a href="http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/netbeans/updates.xml">Napkin's NetBeans Update Center</a> |
| <li><a href="http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/#Snapshots">Napkin Snapshots</a> |
| </ul> |
| |
| |
| |
| </tr> |
| </tbody> |
| </table> |
| |
| <p>NetBeans Staff met with Alex Lam, to grill him about a great new module he's working on: |
| integrating the <a href="http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/">Napkin Look & Feel</a> (L&F) with NetBeans IDE (and any other application built on the |
| NetBeans Platform). |
| |
| <p><h3>Alex where in the world are you and what do you do there?</h3> |
| |
| <p>I am from Hong Kong, currently studying Physics as a 3rd year |
| undergraduate in Cambridge, UK. |
| |
| <p><h3>Are you active in the Java community?</h3> |
| |
| <p>Unfortunately not—I have yet to discover whether they have a Java |
| community here in Cambridge! |
| |
| <p><h3>You've been very busy creating a Napkin L&F module for |
| NetBeans IDE. Tell us about it! </h3> |
| |
| <p>Napkin, as its name implies, is a L&F which gives users the |
| impression that an application's user interface is scribbled on a crumpled piece of |
| napkin. The primary aim is to "give provisional work a provisional |
| look", i.e., to present unfinished work in a user interface which appears yet to be |
| finalised. |
| |
| <p>I spotted Napkin while looking through the results of the NetBeans L&F |
| competition, and I have to say I'm really impressed about how it |
| looks. I can see myself moving the ideas I scribbled during lunch time |
| directly onto the screen—after all, an IDE is where we programmers |
| cook up ideas and implementations, right? |
| |
| <p>Although Napkin had quite a few visual bugs and other issues back |
| then, most of them were fixed when 1.0 was released; however, NetBeans |
| resisted all general attempts to look "native" with the Napkin L&F. I didn't |
| think too much about writing a module back then because I thought a |
| L&F should be general to all applications without specific details, |
| i.e., the code should serve a wider community. Then I thought of the NetBeans |
| Platform—even if the IDE community is not wide enough, implementing |
| a NetBeans module would actually benefit all applications built on top of |
| the platform! So I made up my mind and started working on this, which |
| is what you can now download and use from Napkin's Update Center. |
| |
| <p><h3>So, the point of the Napkin L&F is to create a "draft" look for an |
| application? What's the point of that? </h3> |
| |
| <p>When you present your |
| first user interface draft to your manager in a meeting, it is inevitable that |
| your manager could get the wrong impression about the progress of your |
| project—after all, the user interface, which is what the manager can see, is |
| completed and looks perfect, even though all the core underlying logic |
| that really contributes to the application is still missing. The |
| mismatch between reality and this impression is hard to tackle, and is |
| where Napkin comes into play—it gives the user interface an unfinished, |
| provisional look to match what it really is, an unfinished project |
| application. For example, this is what NetBeans IDE looks like with this |
| look and feel: |
| |
| <p><img align="center" src="nbm_interviews/alex/NBN3.PNG" alt="IDE in Napkin"> |
| |
| <p>Further examples can be found <a href="http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/#Snapshots">here</a> |
| on the Napkin website</p> |
| |
| |
| <p><h3>Can you give a short technical description of how you get the look and feel to work?</h3> |
| |
| <p>Sure. I started off wrapping the original Napkin library using the IDE's Library |
| Wrapper Module project template, which you can do with only a few clicks. |
| |
| <p>Then I created a module suite, which contains the wrapper module and a |
| new module project which I use to put the real code in. The module project looks like |
| this in the Projects window: |
| |
| <p><img align="center" border="1" src="nbm_interviews/alex/project_window.PNG" alt="Project window"> |
| |
| <p>So, in the module project, I've put an |
| Installer which |
| initialises Napkin during IDE startup with this code: |
| |
| <p><pre class="examplecode"> UIManager.setLookAndFeel(new NapkinLookAndFeel()); |
| JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true); |
| JDialog.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true); |
| |
| // set main IDE window to be decorated, too |
| JFrame frame = (JFrame) WindowManager.getDefault().getMainWindow(); |
| |
| // work out the state of the window so as to restore it later on |
| boolean needToDispose = frame.isDisplayable(); |
| boolean isVisible = frame.isVisible(); |
| |
| // detach from display device if necessary |
| if (needToDispose) { |
| frame.dispose(); |
| } |
| |
| // set to use Napkin's decoration |
| frame.setUndecorated(true); |
| frame.getRootPane().setWindowDecorationStyle(JRootPane.FRAME); |
| frame.getRootPane().updateUI(); |
| |
| // restore the window back to its previous state |
| if (needToDispose) { |
| frame.pack(); |
| frame.setVisible(isVisible); |
| }</pre> |
| |
| <p>In <tt>NapkinLFCustoms.java</tt>, which extends the NetBeans API <tt><a href="https://netbeans.org/download/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-swing-plaf/org/netbeans/swing/plaf/LFCustoms.html">LFCustoms</a></tt> class, I have overriden |
| <tt><a href="https://netbeans.org/download/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-swing-plaf/org/netbeans/swing/plaf/LFCustoms.html#createApplicationSpecificKeysAndValues()">createApplicationSpecificKeysAndValues()</a></tt> to return a list of |
| UIDefaults entries that are Napkin-specific. |
| |
| <tt>NapkinEditorTabDisplayerUI.java</tt> implements the visuals of the tabs |
| above the editor window, as shown below: |
| |
| <p><img align="center" border="1" src="nbm_interviews/alex/NapkinTabDisplayer.PNG" alt="NapkinTabDisplayer"> |
| |
| <p>And that's my first working NetBeans module for Napkin! After that, people suggested |
| that I should put in an option to toggle Napkin on/off in the IDE, so |
| I put in a new System Option class, and registered it in the |
| <tt>layer.xml</tt>, to have it persist and load into the system before my |
| module starts. However, I've been told that the System Option class will be replaced |
| in NetBeans 6.0, so I won't go into any detail about how I implemented it here. |
| |
| <p><h3>From where can we get the module that provides this L&F?</h3> |
| |
| <p>You can get it from Napkin's Update Center: |
| <p><a href="http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/netbeans/updates.xml">http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/netbeans/updates.xml</a> |
| <p>You can also get it from nbextras.org: |
| <p><a href="http://www.nbextras.org/2006/04/25/1146000991633.html">http://www.nbextras.org/2006/04/25/1146000991633.html</a> |
| <p><h3>Have you worked on other NetBeans modules? </h3> |
| <p>Not yet—I am considering working on a generalised Look & Feel |
| switcher in the near future, though.</p> |
| |
| |
| <p><h3>What are some of the problems you have encountered?</h3> |
| |
| <p>To be honest, the <a href="https://netbeans.org/download/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-swing-plaf/overview-summary.html">L&F customisation parts of the NetBeans Platform</a> is rather |
| unintuitive and severely under-documented, in my opinion. In fact, the |
| functionalities aren't complete as well—I have yet to wait for some |
| enhancements to HTMLRenderer in order to be able to customise it. |
| |
| <p>Other than that, I have slight issues with building the modules and |
| the update script, but I'd blame myself for mixing NB6 daily builds |
| and NB5 platform. ;-) |
| |
| <p><h3>How did you solve them?</h3> |
| |
| <p>By downloading and |
| staring at the <a href="http://www.netbeans.info/downloads/download.php">NetBeans sources</a> and producing workarounds most of the time. I |
| have to admit that googling and tutorials couldn't provide much help |
| here. |
| |
| <div style="float: right;"><img src="nbm_interviews/quot1-alex.png" alt="Alex quote"></div> |
| |
| <p><h3>What did you enjoy most about creating your NetBeans modules?</h3> |
| |
| <p>Regardless of the issues above, I'd say I like the experience since |
| the majority of other things work seamlessly without much tedious |
| typing, etc. |
| |
| <p><h3>Have you thought about creating an application on the NetBeans Platform as well?</h3> |
| |
| <p>I do have an idea of creating an application in which we can share |
| computing resources and code snippets, initially restricted to |
| mathematical problem solving. The NetBeans Platform seems to provide a |
| good infrastructure for the idea to build upon. :-) |
| |
| |
| |
| <p><h3>What are your favorite features of NetBeans?</h3> |
| |
| <p>I'd say I like it in general because it works out of the box. |
| I mean, you get things working without having to think about "download A, install B, |
| go to C, and move around D, then type E... then press Z". OK, as a |
| programmer we should be able to follow more complex procedures, but I |
| can't see why I should be doing these tedious tasks if a better |
| alternative exists—and NetBeans IDE is the alternative. |
| |
| <p>And when you bump into a problem, people on the <a href="https://netbeans.org/community/lists/">mailing lists</a> and the |
| <a href="https://netbeans.org/community/issues.html">issue tracker</a> are usually very responsive and helpful. |
| |
| <p>I have yet to explore NetBeans Platform in general, since I have yet |
| to build an application on top of it. |
| |
| <p><h3>If you could change one thing in module development features in NetBeans, what would it be?</h3> |
| |
| <p>Can't think of one off the top of my head, since most parts with general |
| module development are quite painless, at least when compared to |
| getting the L&F customisation to work. |
| |
| |
| <p><h3>Any final thoughts?</h3> |
| |
| <p>I'd like to thank the NetBeans team for developing such a nice product—the fact that |
| it contains so many features and yet is simple to |
| utilise, and also the fact that it is still evolving rapidly! |
| |
| |
| |
| <p><h3>Thanks, Alex and good luck with your Napkin module and further work in the L&F area |
| for NetBeans IDE. As well as, of course, any work you do in creating an application on top of the |
| NetBeans Platform!</h3> |
| |
| |
| <p> |
| |
| |
| |
| <!-- ======================================================================================== --> |
| |
| <h2><a name="nextsteps"></a>Further reading</h2> |
| |
| <p>For information about creating and developing plug-in modules and rich-client applications, see the following resources: |
| <ul> |
| |
| <p><li><a href="https://platform.netbeans.org/tutorials/quickstart-nbm.html">Introduction to NetBeans Module Development</a></li> |
| <p><li><a href="https://platform.netbeans.org/tutorials/nbm-paintapp.html">Introduction to Rich-Client Application Development</a></li> |
| <p><li><a href="https://platform.netbeans.org/tutorials/index.html">NetBeans Modules and Rich-Client Applications Learning Trail</a></li> |
| <p><li><a href="https://netbeans.org/download/dev/javadoc/">NetBeans API Javadoc (Current Development Version)</a></li> |
| <p><li><a href="http://www.planetnetbeans.org">Blogs by NetBeans Engineers and NetBeans Users</a></li></ul> |
| </p> |
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