<AWT Dev> Thoughts about 6402325 (Swing toolbars vs native toolbars on Windows)

[Phil Race]

Anthony Petrov wrote:
> Hi Mike,
> 
> On 08/25/2009 07:58 PM, Mike Swingler wrote:
>> Java on Mac OS X already implements similar functionality with a Swing 
>> client property "Window.style" -> "small", so we welcome this addition 
>> to the formal Java API specification.
> 
> I'm glad to hear that!
> 
> 
>> To on Mac OS X, the underlying AppKit framework does not support 
>> changing the NSWindow style mask on the fly. Could the specification 
>> be written to require the type to be set prior to the native peer 
>> becoming realized?
> 
> Since some platforms may allow changing the property on the fly, others 
> may require hiding and subsequent showing the window w/o recreating the 
> peer, and third require recreating the peer, it would be great to 
> provide the highest level of support to Java applications when running 
> on a given platform.
> 
> What about
> 
> Throwing an exception in case the Java implementation is unable to 
> change the style when the peer is realized?

Without telling you what to do, here are some things to consider :

* Exceptions are for exceptional conditions. Not something that's normal
   and expected on a configuration.

* It is best to recognise platform behaviours early on and think about
   how to handle it from the beginning. I recall that it was a bit of
   a nightmare with Desktop.isTraySupported not distinguishing between that
   not being supported at all by the platform/WM vs not being visible at the
   moment the Java API was first called. The hard part was retrofitting
   recognising this behaviour without breaking apps.
   See http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=6438179

* Baking in to the spec allowing platform specific behaviours are
   annoying in that it forces (good) developers to find platforms
   with each of the possible behaviours and test under those conditions.

As I said, these are thing to consider, not recommendations.
For example it might be best to use an Exception even at the cost of
making it less simple to use for developers if otherwise lazy developers
would find it easy to write code that could ignore the condition they
never saw except on Windows ..

-phil.





> 
> -OR-
> 
> Providing a sort of getWindowTypeChangeSupportLevel() method, and having 
> the setType() method to silently store the passed argument for future 
> needs?
> 
> Although both options are not as nice as we would want. Perhaps you 
> could suggest something else?
> 
> -- 
> best regards,
> Anthony