When Java software developers want to create a desktop application in the Solaris OS, they need to create an application that will integrate well with the existing GNOME desktop. This application need to share the same native look and feel as the desktop theme, use the native system dialogs, use the native configuration engine and in every respect look and behave like a native GNOME desktop application.
There are a number of choices available to developers. They can use an application framework such as Swing, which is part of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) or the SWT framework provided by Eclipse. However, if they are already GNOME developers and familiar with Glade/GTK-based development, then they will have to learn yet another framework, which can of course be very time consuming.
The Java GNOME bindings offer another alternative. This is a set of Java bindings for the GNOME platform libraries and the Cairo 2D drawing engine from freedesktop.org. The bindings allow GNOME and GTK+ applications to be written in the Java programming language, making use of Java Native Interface (JNI) support to bridge between Java technology and the underlying native GNOME platform and Cairo C libraries.
If you'd like to learn more about Java GNOME bindings, check out John Rice's article on the subject on sun.com at:
developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/java_gnome/
(Note: The bindings are available as part of Solaris Express, Developer Edition 2/07)
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