This meeting will cover two very interesting Java developer tools, including their design and implementation.

The first is an upcoming Swing GUI builder which makes Swing programming simple - simple to draw, simple to load (just one line of code), and simple to interact with (with a unified interface for accessing values from many different controls). This GUI builder is not a code generator - instead it stores a user interface as an XML description which can be re-hydrated. And this GUI builder cuts through the complexity of Swing layout managers by offering a powerful and simple "Springs and Struts" layout paradigm. Source code for the GUI engine will be provided.

The second tool is ReportMill, a Java developer tool for dynamically generating web pages and reports from Java applications in formats such as PDF and Flash. It is the only reporting tool designed especially for reporting on Java applications and Java datasets (instead of a database). ReportMill is a full featured page layout and animation application written entirely in Java - and using the GUI builder described above (all of ReportMill's GUI is described in XML). We'll cover not only ReportMill's unique use of the powerful Java reflection API, but also ReportMill's unique use of XML for designing templates.

This presentation will be technically oriented, covering how these tools are used in development and also the techniques used in the design of these tools. The presenter has implemented every aspect of these applications, so we can cover audience inspired topics as well.

Jeff Martin