The server hosting the moderation software has run into troubles, and
we're going to have to set it up elsewhere.

Until this time, we won't be able to moderate any
comp.lang.java.announce articles.

Apologies - I'll get it back up ASAP.

Jon Skeet, moderator

The Spiffy Framework is a collection of well tested and efficient best
practice utility methods and classes. Most of the code has been
applied in industrial
settings with great results. The aim of this code is to remedy design
flaws or insufficiencies in existing API's or make tedious
interactions
with the API straight forward. For example, there is great stuff to be
discovered in the JUnitHelper or the LoggerHelper.

The goals of the Spiffy Framework is:

* To collect and centralize "utility abstractions"

* To serve as a repository of knowledge/smart ideas for
programmers to learn

new stuff in v0.05

* added spiffy.log4j.LoggerHelper for a consistent way to get Logger
instances
* added keySet() to TwoDHashMap and ThreeDHashMap
* added getAs2d() to ThreeDHashMap returning a TwoDHashMap

Upgrade guide: just replace the .jar file...

-kasper

New stuff in this release

* Added sqlorm-with_src.jar to the sqlorm.zip containing both classes
and source files for better integration with IDE's.

* Added ConstantsDump which enable type safe SQL development and easy
database refactoring capabilities (see
http://sqlorm.sourceforge.net/database_refactoring_made_easy.html for
comprehensive documentation on it).

* Added ResultSetForMetaData for improved access to ResultSet data.

* Added support for the generated constants of ConstantDump in
SelectBuilder

Upgrade guide: just replace sqlorm.jar

Jailer 2.2.0 has been released.

Model-based data export, schema browsing and rendering.
Exports consistent, referentially intact row-sets from relational
databases.
Removes obsolete data without violating integrity.
DBMS agnostic (JDBC). Platform independent.
Generates topologically sorted SQL-DML.

The 2.2.0 release includes a new graph-based model editor
and an improved documentation.

http://jailer.sourceforge.net

Release 1.1 of FlexGantt has been released on April 29th, 2008. It
contains a long list of bug fixes, enhancements, and new features. It
also adds internationalization support for several languages: English,
German, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese.

FlexGantt is a UI framework for Java / Swing. It provides interactive,
high performance, Gantt charts for any kind of planning and scheduling
application. It's large feature set sets it apart from other
frameworks and allows it to be used in various different domains.

FlexGantt can be downloaded at http://www.dlsc.com

Regards,

Dirk Lemmermann
Software & Consulting
Zurich, Switzerland

Its been a while since I've announced any news about Netbeans but that is
because of the controverse which (IMO:) overshadowed the initial 6.0 release.
Being one of the many critics I didn't want to risk writing up negative critics
on a platform where they don't belong.

So, having that out of the way: Yesterday NetBeans 6.1 has been officially
released.

When you're new to the 6.x branch of Netbeans (or new to the entire platform)
you'll quickly notice that you're dealing with an IDE which has its roots fully
in Java but also reaches out to support many different other platforms. Because
this group is solely aimed at Java I am not including those features in my
announcement, but will merely say that Netbeans also includes supports for
C/C++, Javascript, Ruby and even PHP (PHP support is in beta stage).

Netbeans 6 has been completely rewritten from scratch in order to get a
platform which is better manageable and to make sure that the code doesn't
become a total mess. You can notice this from the way the IDE behaves (it tends
to boot faster and be more responsive) as well as some of the older bugs which
have re-surfaced.

Specific Java features which are supported are:

April 5, 2008 - betasoft, independent software developer for
CodeGear(tm) Delphi and for the Java(tm) platform, is pleased to
announce the release of ScroogeXHTML for the Java(tm) platform 3.0.

ScroogeXHTML for the Java(tm) platform is a JavaBean(tm) which can
convert a subset of the RTF standard to XHTML and HTML 4.01. It is fast
and easy to customize. Full source code and one year free updates are
covered by the registration fee.

LyteRAD 2.0 for windows and linux. An integrated application
development framework for light-weight database applications. Its a
java based framework for building complete standalone applications.
Build desktop & mobile database applications.

LyteRAD is available both as a free edition, and an enhanced
professional edition at a charge.

http://www.lytecube.com

March 31, 2008 - betasoft, independent software developer for
CodeGear(tm) Delphi and for the Java(tm) platform, is pleased to
announce release 1.1 of its CodeGear(tm) Delphi(tm) client library
Habari for Apache ActiveMQ, the popular and powerful open source
Message
Broker and Enterprise Integration Patterns provider. With Habari
ActiveMQ Client, enterprise application developers can build integrated
solutions, connecting cross language clients and protocols from Java,
C,
C++, C#, Ruby, Perl, Python, and PHP, with support for transient,
persistent and transactional messaging, using the peer-to-peer or the
publish and subscribe communication model.

We have released a new version, 700, of "Jun for Java".

The major changes since the version 699 includes:

* (incompatibility) No more 'Java 2 Platform, Standard
Edition, 1.4' support.

* (modification) Avoid using deprecated methods of topology
related
classes.

* (modification) The JavaDoc comments of topology related
classes are refined.

* (bug fix) Fixed a bug with the instance variable
initializer. A subclass of JunAbstractObject should not
initialize its instance variables with the instance
variable initializer since its 'initialize' method will be
invoked before it.

You can download "Jun for Java" from the following URL.

ftp://ftp.sra.co.jp/pub/lang/java/jun4java/