ListModel turns generic

ListModel turns generic - at last

The features of project coin have been shouted about and argued over for a while now, and other various API changes have also made it into the spotlight - a fork-join framework in java.util.concurrent and the ability to have shaped windows for instance.

However, one thing that seems to have slipped under the spotlight is the fact that ListModel is now generic, a change that's well overdue in my opinion.

http://download-llnw.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/javax/swing/ListModel.html

Dealing with constant casting on list models thus far hasn't been nice, and I'm not sure why it's taken this long for the class to become generic - it's an obvious candidate and I struggle to see how it slipped under the carpet for both Java 5 and 6.

It's a relatively minor change in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes it's the minor changes that actually turn out to be the ones that work best and save most time. I'll certainly look forward to the day when I no longer need to cast everything coming out of listmodels!

Comments

The comprehensive (and free) DVD / Blu-ray ripping Guide!

Note: If you've read this guide already (or when you've read it) then going through all of it each time you want to rip something can be a bit of a pain, especially when you just need your memory jogging on one particular section. Because of that, I've put together a quick "cheat sheet" here which acts as a handy reference just to jog your memory on each key step. I've seen a few guides around on ripping DVDs, but fewer for Blu-rays, and many miss what I believe are important steps (such as ensuring the correct foreign language subtitles are preserved!) While ripping your entire DVD collection would have seemed insane due to storage requirements even a few years ago, these days it can make perfect sense. This guide doesn't show you a one click approach that does all the work for you, it's much more of a manual process. But the benefits of putting a bit more effort in really do pay off - you get to use entirely free tools with no demo versions, it...

Dropbox Java API

This code will no longer work! It uses the old v1 API, which has been turned off. See here for working code with the latest v2 API. As well as being useful as general cloud storage, dropbox also has an API that lets you access its contents programmatically. It's a straightforward REST API with a number of language specific libraries to make the going a bit easier. Java is included on the list of SDKs, but at present only Android is included on the list of tutorials. This can be somewhat frustrating because simple examples using Java are lacking. Fortunately, the process was described by Josh here . So I've taken it and implemented it in Java, and it seems to work. It's a very basic example that authenticates with dropbox then uploads a file called "testing.txt" containing "hello world." Of course, more functionality is available than this, but this is the hard part (at least I found working this bit out the hard part.) Once you've got your Dro...

Using VLCJ for video reliably with out of process players

This post is really a follow on to the last, so if you want a bit of background give that a read through. In it I basically talk about the various options I came to when trying to implement video support in Java, and how I felt the best way to go was using out of process players and VLCJ. Before I get to the code, a warning - while this isn't stupidly hard, it's definitely not for beginners. If you're competent with Java in general you shouldn't have any trouble following - but this is not a cut / paste / forget the advanced stuff job! Eventually and depending on interest I may look into packaging it up into an easy to use library and distributing, but that day is not today! Secondly, this code is literally cut straight out of Quelea and at the moment is: Largely uncommented From an unreleased version Not the best quality May contain Quelea specific bits that don't apply Eventually, it'll all be refactored into beautiful OO-like niceness. But in terms of the con...

Ramblings of a coder

Search This Blog