SwingLabs


swingLabs is a discontinued open-source project developed by Sun Microsystems proposing extensions to the Java Swing GUI toolkit. Available components included:
  • Sorting, filtering, highlighting for tables, trees, and lists
  • Find/search
  • Auto-completion
  • Login/authentication framework
  • TreeTable component
  • Collapsible panel component
  • Date picker component
  • Tip of the day component
The aim of the project was to experiment new or enhanced GUI functionalities that are required by Rich client applications. It acted as a testbed for ideas related to client side technologies.

Integration into Java API

Some successful project components were eventually incorporated into the core Swing toolkit for future Java versions, although API compatibility was not guaranteed. Examples of these are:
  • The GroupLayout manager in Java [SE 6].
  • Incorporation of the SystemTray in Java SE 6.
  • The new Desktop class in Java SE 6, which allows to launch easily associated applications registered on the native desktop, as for example : launching the user-default browser, launching the user-default mail client, launching a registered application to open, edit or print a specified file.

Sub-projects

The swingLabs project was divided into several sub-projects. For example:

Project status

During the sunsetting of java.net in 2017, the public repository for SwingLabs was deleted, effectively terminating the SwingLabs project. Several repositories containing snapshots of the final development version of SwingLabs do exist.