Trident is an animation library for Java applications, and this week i’ve written about the concepts behind it and APIs available to interested applications:

• Part 1 – Hello world
• Part 2 – interpolating fields
• Part 3 – timeline life cycle
• Part 4 – duration fraction and timeline position
• Part 5 – supporting UI toolkits
• Part 6 – simple Swing / SWT examples
• Part 7 – parallel timelines in Swing and SWT
• Part 8 – timeline scenarios
• Part 9 – key frames
• Part 10 – extending the core with plugins

What’s next? Version 1.0 (code-named Acumen) is right around the corner. Release candidate is scheduled for June 29, and the final release is scheduled for July 13.

Trident is a new library, and its APIs need to be tested in real-world scenarios. While i have a few small test applications that illustrate the specific API methods, as well as medium sized demos (Onyx and Amber), there is always room for improvement.

Going forward, i intend to evolve Trident, and i already have a couple of post-1.0 features in the pipeline. Trident has evolved from the internal animation layer of Substance look-and-feel, and the next major release of Substance will be rewritten to use Trident – further testing the published APIs for usage in real-world scenarios. In addition, the next major release of Flamingo ribbon will add Trident-based animations – where applicable.

Your input and feedback are always highly appreciated. Download the latest daily bits, and read the documentation. Subscribe to the mailing lists and let me know what is missing, and how the existing APIs can be improved. If you find a bug, report it in the issue tracker. If you want to take a look at the code, check out the SVN repository and subscribe to the “commits” mailing list.

Swing / SWT applications do not have to be boring. Trident aims to simplify the development of rich animation effects in Java based UI applications, addressing both simple and complex scenarios. But it can only be as good as the applications that are using it. So, read the documentation, download the sources / binaries, integrate it in your applications and let me know what you think.