The work on Trident project announced in the previous post continues, and here are a few demos that my Twitter followers might have seen during this week:

Simple demo recreating the fireworks from this JavaFX implementation. The source is available in the SVN test/Firework.java class and shows the usage of parallel scenarios. Each volley explosion is a separate Trident timeline, and there are 270 of those running at the same time. The CPU usage is about 8-10% as compared to the 25-30% usage of the JavaFX example (on my machine).

Another simple demo recreating the Groovy GraphicsBuilder snake. The source is available in the SVN test/Snake.java class and shows the new Timeline.replay() method.

The last two videos show the work in progress on a larger demo. The full source code will be available in the next few weeks, but in the meantime you can see some of the animations. The first one shows sliding images, with usage of timeline scenarios, each comprising multiple sequenced and branching timelines, swing workers and runnables with futures:

And the second one shows the usage frequency of specific words, using the new interpolator capabilities of the Timeline class:

Trident is the next evolutionary step of the animation layer that drives the animations in applications powered by Substance look-and-feel. The underlying animation engine has been in development and production use over the last two years, but the API was heavily oriented towards the UI delegates in custom look-and-feels. One of main goals of Trident is to preserve the power, performance and expressiveness of the existing animation engine, while at the same time providing a set of simpler APIs for use in application code.

The first drop of source code, build scripts and the runtime library are available in the download area and in the SVN, and in the next few weeks expect more polishing of the API, additional examples and documentation. For now, allow me to leave you with two demo videos that follow Chet’s examples from the next version of Flex:

I am extremely pleased today to announce the official release for version 4.0 of Flamingo component suite (code-named Fainnear). As detailed in the roadmap for this release, the goal was to provide the missing functionality from the Office 2007 Command Bar, and the journey that has started in September 2005 has arrived at its most important milestone so far.

I can finally say that the Flamingo ribbon can be used to create Swing ribbon-driven applications. While some of the minor functionality will have to be postponed to the next few releases, Fainnear provides all the major building blocks to create sophisticated ribbon content and wire it to the custom application logic. The release notes for version 4.0 contain the detailed information on the contents of this release which include:

• Application menu button and application menu
• Application title bar
• Resize and resize sequencing policies
• Scrolling shrinked ribbon content
• Rich tooltips
• Key tips
• Ribbon minimized mode
• Visual groups in ribbon bands
• Ribbon flow bands
• Hosting core Swing components in ribbon
• Rich popup panels
• Ribbon help button
• A03 plugin for Flamingo
• High fidelity Substance skins
• Polished command button strip visuals
• Control over command button gap scaling

To see the Flamingo ribbon component in action under core look-and-feels, run the following WebStart demo:

To see the Flamingo ribbon component in action under Substance look-and-feel, run the following WebStart demo:

If you want to test the ribbon in your applications, you would need the following (the last two only for applications running under Substance look-and-feel):

• The 4.0final drop of Flamingo (code-named Fainnear)
• The 5.1final drop of Substance (code-named Panama)
• The 5.1final drop of Substance Flamingo plugin

You are more than welcome to take Flamingo 4.0final for a ride and report any problems in the project mailing lists, forums or issue tracker.

I would like to thank all the early adopters that have tried the early development drops of Flamingo 4.0. Special thanks go to Andrey Eremchenko for extensive reporting and verifying of complex usability scenarios, especially for minimized, shrinked and popup functionality.

Sample screenshots of Flamingo 4.0 in action:

I am very pleased today to announce the official release for version 5.1 of Substance look-and-feel (code-named Panama). The release notes for version 5.1 contain the detailed information on the contents of this release, and the migration guide describes two application-facing binary incompatibilities introduced in button shaper and highlight painter APIs.

This release includes the following:

• Rework of Office Blue skin
• Rework of Office Silver skin
• Extended skinning capabilities
• Improved performance
• Better support for disabled icons
• Better support for themed icons
• Visual editor for color schemes
• Extended support for very large fonts
• Vietnamese localization
• Extended tracing of EDT violations

Click on the button below to launch a signed WebStart application that shows the available Substance features.

The following sub-projects are also available as official releases:

• Substance plugin for SwingX component suite build 1512 from January 5. See test application.
• Substance plugin for Flamingo component suite 4.0. See test applications.
• Substance Extras pack.

You are more than welcome to take Substance 5.1final for a ride and report any problems in the project mailing lists, forums or issue tracker.

Sample screenshots of Substance 5.1 in action: