Category Archives: Software Tools

Microsoft patents BlueJ

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Bj-Ms

Okay, okay. You know what it’s like with writing headlines: Short and catchy. Accuracy counts as a distant third.

This is my attempt at catchy headline writing. But the truth isn’t far off. It really should have said: Microsoft applies for patent for core BlueJ functionality.
And that’s really true. After blatantly copying BlueJ (without reference or attribution), Microsoft have now filed for patent for the functionality they knowingly copied from us.

Why? To sue us out of the market? To make us pay? Who knows. Sad fact is that this could destroy BlueJ.

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More about Greenfoot sound

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Asteroids-1

As the next Greenfoot release nears, and I mentioned sound support in my last post, there’s now a short demo video available. It shows smooth animation, and sound support in Greenfoot (in an “Asteroids” scenario).
Watch it here.

And come the next Greenfoot release, do it yourself!

And the best thing about it (or at least one of the best): this whole program is written with only about 280 lines of code (in Java)! Not too bad, I reckon.

What’s In A Word? — Firefox Safe Mode

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Wording is important in good human-computer interaction design. Wording of commands, messages, status and other interface elements can make a big difference. So let’s think for a minute about the word “safe”.

Safe is good, right? Is there anything bad about “safe”?

Firefox has a “Safe Mode”. And it’s a really bad idea. Why, you ask? “Safe” sounds really reassuring. An army of marketing experts could hardly come up with a better word, you would think.

So what’s not to like?

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NetBeans / BlueJ Edition: Webcast and Article

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webcast image

A while ago, I wrote about the new NetBeans IDE / BlueJ Edition. Well, no piece of software can stand on alone on its own – it also needs support from documentation, background information, tutorials, and ideally a user community to really take off.
Sun have now released two more pieces in this puzzle: A very nice article and a webcast on the Sun Developer Network.

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BlueJ features – where do we draw the line?

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In a comment to an earlier entry on this page – “What’s happening with BlueJ?” – Peter Loborg mentioned a couple of features he misses in BlueJ: the ability to display the full UML details of a class in the diagram, and better support for packages.

This touches on a general point: what features should BlueJ support?

Most people agree that one of BlueJ’s main strengths is its small size (as seen by the user) and simple interface. At the same time, most people want us to include their favourite feature…

A few thoughts about feature inclusion in general and the UML feature in particular.

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NetBeans IDE / BlueJ Edition — it’s here

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Netbeans-Bluej-Logo

The NetBeans IDE / BlueJ Edition, which I wrote about in an earlier post, has now been officially released. You can download it from the NetBeans web site.

This environment gives you a great option for your second IDE, once BlueJ becomes too small for you and you’re ready for the serious stuff.

Once you’re in NetBeans, try out Matisse, the new NetBeans GUI builder. It’s nice. Believe me, worth a look.

To complete or not to complete

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Complete
Some thoughts on auto-completion and auto-formatting.
At the BlueJ team, we regularly get requests for new features. Two of the most requested features are auto-completion (of method names, imports and fields) and auto-formatting (a.k.a. “pretty-printing”) of code.

We have had these discussion since the very first release of BlueJ. So far, I have always refused to include these features. Is it time to re-think?

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