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News and New Product Briefs (July 20, 1999)

By Kane Scarlett, JavaWorld.com, 07/20/99

JDK 1.2.2 is here

Sun announced JDK 1.2.2, a maintenance release of the Java 2 SDK and Java 2 Runtime Environment (J2RE) that contains performance enhancements and bug fixes.

The size of the download bundle for the Win32 J2RE has been decreased by more than a third by compacting JAR files, removing line numbers and debug data from runtime class files, including only one font (LucidaSansRegular), and removing the color-management profile (PYCC.pf).

The Win32 runtime environment comes with version 1.2.2 of the Java Plugin, which offers enhancements for enabling the HTTPS protocol and support for RSA digital signature verification (on Windows 9x and NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3).

Swing components have been enhanced in this version so that buttons, labels, and menu items can now contain HTML text. The JViewport class also scrolls more quickly.

This release does contain the following bugs, which may break compatibility with existing 1.2-based code:

• The value of public static fields TREE_MODEL_PROPERTY and INVOKES_STOP_CELL_EDITING_PROPERTY in class JTree have changed since version 1.2
  
  
• The value of public static field FOCUS_ACCELERATOR_KEY in class javax.swing.tree.JTextComponent has changed from focusAcceleratorKey to focusAccelerator since version 1.2
  
  
• A bug causes method JToolBar.getComponentAtIndex(int) to throw ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when the int input parameter is out of bounds
  
  
• A bug in the lightweight component support for Swing on both Win32 and Solaris can cause a spurious NullPointerException to be thrown when making a selection in a JComboBox object
  
  
• A segmentation-fault crash, caused by a fault in the multithreading mechanism, can occur on Solaris after Swing components have been used for a short time and are then disposed of, as is the case with dialogs

Expect these bugs to be repaired in the final 1.2.2 release.

Fixes and enhancements to the AWT packages include:

• A fix so cursors can be reliably changed
  
  
• The AltGr keys now work
  
  
• A new modal dialog architecture is employed which doesn't spin off multiple threads
  
  
• Solaris users can now drag the lightweight components' frame by the title bar without the components losing focus
  
  
• A conservative, performance-enhancing heuristic for PaintEvent coalescing has been added, so that feature is supported
  
  
• With the Java Plugin or the SDK appletviewer, multiple applets launched from the same codebase now share an AWT EventQueue and EventDispatchedThread instance

Java 2D functionality has been improved by performance enhancements to the constructive area geometry methods (add, subtract, intersect, and exculsiveOr) of class java.awt.geom.Area and to the hit-testing methods (intersects and contains) of classes java.awt.geom.Area, java.awt.Polygon, and java.awt.geom.GeneralPath. Also, many of the PCL and PostScript printer problems have been ironed out.

There are several Java 2D bugs that are related to image-rendering problems under GDI mode on Windows 95:

• Some display drivers will cause monitor images, including windows, to appear to resync or jump when DirectDraw is accessed
  
  
• Java does not support 16-color displays; the user must change the color depth to 256 color mode or better

These problems can be avoided by using DirectDraw (part of the DirectX technology) and the latest video driver.

 

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