We asked what you wanted to read in Java Technology Fundamentals, and you responded. Thank you to everyone who replied. The survey will remain online in the New to Java Center so that you can continue to add topics as the need arises.

Based on reader feedback, you will see two new sections in this newsletter in coming months:

• Desktop Java Development -- This section will contain an article each month covering topics specific to desktop programming on the Java platform, such as application planning and UML, Swing, JDBC, IO, and application deployment.
  
  
• Server-Side Java Development -- This section will cover Java server-side technologies in two-tier systems, explaining technologies such as JavaServer Pages (JSP), servlets, JDBC, and sample applications such as online polls, forms, session servlets, and so forth to demonstrate how the technologies fit together.

The Java Technology Fundamentals Newsletter will continue with the Java Programming Basics and with Making Sense of the Java Classes & Tools to cover the fundamentals of syntax and programming, the nuts and bolts of Java technologies. Additionally, the newsletter will continue to point to articles and tutorials on the NetBeans integrated development environment (IDE) and Sun Java Studio Creator IDE sites for those of you learning to program in an IDE.

If you didn't have a chance to add topics you'd like to see covered in this newsletter, click here

To see what we have covered in past issues, click here:

Lesson: Java Web Start Software

Java Web Start software provides the power to launch full-featured applications with a single click. Users can download and launch applications, such as a complete spreadsheet program or an Internet chat client, without going through complicated installation procedures.

With Java Web Start software, the user can launch a Java application by clicking a link in a web page. The link points to a Java Network Launching Protocol (JNLP) file, which instructs Java Web Start to download, cache, and run the application.

Java Web Start software provides Java developers and users with many deployment advantages:

• With Java Web Start, you can place a single Java application on a web server for deployment to a wide variety of platforms, including Windows 2003/Vista/2000/XP, Linux, and Solaris operating systems.
  
  
• Java Web Start supports multiple, simultaneous versions of the Java Platform, Standard Edition. Specific applications can request specific Java platform versions without conflicting with the different needs of other applications. Java Web Start automatically downloads and installs the correct version of the Java platform as necessary based on the application's needs and the user's environment.
  
  
• Users can launch a Java Web Start application independently of a web browser. The user can be off-line or unable to access the browser. Desktop shortcuts can also launch the application, providing the user with the same experience as a native application.
  
  
• Java Web Start takes advantage of the inherent security of the Java platform. By default, applications have restricted access to local disk and network resources. Users can safely run applications from sources that are not trusted.
  
  
• Applications launched with Java Web Start are cached locally, for improved performance.
  
  
• Java Web Start provides limited support for applets through its built-in applet viewer. However, this is not intended to be a full-scale applet environment, such as the one provided by Java Plug-in. Java Web Start's applet viewer has certain limitations; for example, you cannot specify class files as resources, and it does not accept policy files.

In Java Platform version 1.4.2 and later, Java Web Start software is installed as part of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Users do not have to install it separately or perform additional tasks to use Java Web Start applications.

Read the rest of the lesson
 

Lesson: Concurrency

Computer users take it for granted that their systems can do more than one thing at a time. They assume that they can continue to work in a word processor while other applications download files, manage the print queue, and stream audio. Even a single application is often expected to do more than one thing at a time. For example, that streaming audio application must simultaneously read the digital audio off the network, decompress it, manage playback, and update its display. Even the word processor should always be ready to respond to keyboard and mouse events, no matter how busy it is reformatting text or updating the display. Software that can do such things is known as concurrent software.

 The Java platform is designed from the ground up to support concurrent programming, with basic concurrency support in the Java programming language and the Java class libraries. Since version 5.0, the Java platform has also included high-level concurrency APIs.

This lesson introduces the platform's basic currency support and summarizes some of the high-level APIs in the java.util.concurrent packages.

Read the lesson
 

The Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE platform) is used for a wide variety of applications from small applets on desktops to web services on large servers. In the J2SE 1.4.2 platform, the user could choose from four garbage collectors, but without an explicit choice by the user, the serial garbage collector was always chosen. In version 5.0, the choice of the collector is based on the class of the machine on which the application is started.

This "smarter choice" of the garbage collector is generally better but is not always the best. For users who want to make their own choice of garbage collectors, this document will provide information on which to base that choice. This will first include the general features of the garbage collection and tuning options to take best advantage of those features. The examples are given in the context of the serial, stop-the-world collector. Then specific features of the other collectors will be discussed, along with factors that you should consider when choosing one of the other collectors.

Read this article
 

Using Dynamic Page Navigation

In this tutorial, you use the Sun Java Studio Creator integrated development environment (IDE) to create an application that uses dynamic page navigation. The application determines at runtime which page displays based on the value returned by the Drop Down List component. The Drop Down List enables the user to choose a destination page, and the application navigates to one of two available destination pages. You also learn an alternative and more advanced method of dynamic page navigation, which allows the page navigation to occur as soon as the selection is made from the Drop Down List.

Read the tutorial
 

Advanced Free-Form Project Configuration

Free-form projects in the NetBeans IDE provide a very powerful tool for Java developers who build and run their applications using an Ant script.

If you are comfortable working with Ant, you can edit your Ant script and the IDE project configuration file to achieve an even tighter integration between the NetBeans IDE and your build process.

This article assumes that you have already completed the first steps in setting up a free-form project. See this guide for setting up a free-form standard project and a free-form web project.

Read the tutorial and do the exercises: http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/gui-functionality.html

Read the tutorial and do the exercises

The University of Kent and Sun Microsystems are collaborating to create a smooth migration path for students learning the Java programming language from beginners' stages through to the use of professional development tools.

Sun Microsystems has for some time also supported the development of BlueJ, a programming environment developed at the University of Kent, UK, and Deakin University, Australia. BlueJ is an environment specifically aimed at beginning programmers. It offers educational tools such as visualization and interaction facilities that greatly aid the learning of object-oriented concepts. First released in 1999, BlueJ has become one of the most popular environments for programming education in introductory programming courses at universities and colleges.

Read more: