To Swing or Not to Swing…

The recent release of JDK 1.4 is giving me headaches.

I've been trying to come up with a solution for IP Monitor to work consistently under Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS X and Classic. I've managed to make most of the UI look good on all platforms, except for the menu bar. The issues are as follows:

• JDK 1.3/1.4 doesn't properly render the background color of an AWT MenuBar under XP. A Swing JMenuBar, on the other hand, seem to be displayed correctly.
  
  
• Under Mac OS Classic, an AWT MenuBar can be placed in the standard OS menu bar; a Swing JMenuBar cannot. Mac OS X, on the other hand, can be made to use either.

I'd really like to avoid having to maintain two sets of menus. I think I've done a pretty good job at abstracting all of the platform specific code, so far. I'd really hate to resort to such a draconian approach.

I might simply have to drop support for Mac OS Classic in the next version. There's really nothing wrong with the classic MRJ, but being forced to code for JDK 1.1.x is annoying.

I could also implement support for, and, recommend people start using Luca Lutterotti's alternative MacOS Look & Feel under classic. Which may turn out to be the best way after all.

Decisions… decisions… My head hurts again…

Freeze This!

If you're looking for a creation/modification date freezing tool for Windows XP, I'd highly recommend Attribute Changer. It's free, intuitive and does a better job than any of the other tools I've tried.

Looking around for a file attributes editor reminded me of the Frontier Droplets I wrote, back in 1995. I haven't used them in years, but I still think the Freeze Date and Edit File Info+ UIs rock!

On February 20, 1962 John Glenn made space history when he orbited the world three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes. He was the first American to orbit the Earth. He was aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.