<AWT Dev> RFR [9] Modular Source Code

Anthony Petrov anthony.petrov at oracle.com
Mon Aug 18 14:15:08 UTC 2014


On 8/18/2014 5:47 PM, Magnus Ihse Bursie wrote:
> libawt et al:
>    The relation between libawt, libawt_headless, libjawt, libawt_xawt
> and libawt_lwawt are hairy enough to make my brain curl up. I believe
> there are simplifications to be made but I gave up trying to figure them
> out.

libawt contains code that is shared between all AWT lib implementations. 
Depending on what mode/toolkit is requested, it loads a specific variant 
of the awt native library, such as:

  - libawt_headless - headless AWT implementation.
  - libawt_xawt - XToolkit implementation (uses X11 for GUI)
  - libawt_lwawt - CToolkit implementation (uses Cocoa for GUI)

Historically, we were able to choose between lwawt and xawt on Mac in 
the past, but we no longer support or even build xawt on Mac. Also, in 
the past there was MToolkit (which used Motif for GUI). Again, we no 
longer support this toolkit. So, currently we always use xawt on 
Linux/Solaris and lwawt on Mac. But since we still need to choose 
between a real toolkit and a headless toolkit, we need the common libawt 
library.

libjawt is a helper library that implements JAWT API and is loaded by 
applications that use the JAWT interface which allows them to get direct 
access to the native AWT drawing surface and use native APIs (e.g. 
OpenGL) to draw on the surface. This library isn't needed for regular 
AWT/Swing applications.

So I'm not sure if the current set of AWT libraries could be simplified 
any further.

Hope this helps.

--
best regards,
Anthony


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