InfoBus version 1.2

InfoBus 1.2 Changes Summary

This is an overview of the changes made for InfoBus 1.2. The changes are described in detail in the InfoBus 1.2 Specification, which can be accessed from http://java.sun.com/beans/infobus.

• A new access interface, ReshapeableArrayAccess, extends the existing ArrayAccess interface with operations to set new dimensions, and insert or delete rows, columns, cells, planes, etc.
• To inform consumers of changes to the shape of an array, the new DataItemShapeChangedEvent class is defined.
• To allow consumers to listen for the new change event, the new DataItemShapeChangeListener interface is defined.
• To simplify the task of supplying a change listener, a new class, DataItemChangeListenerSupport, is introduced. This class provides empty-body implementations for all defined change events. A consumer can subclass this interface, replacing the handling for events of interest, and allowing others to be effectively ignored.
• A new class, DataItemChangeManagerSupport, replaces the newly deprecated DataItemChangeSupport class. The new class adds a method for firing the new event. Although the new method could have been added to DataItemChangeSupport without breaking backward compatibility, we have provided a class with a new name to avoid confusion with the new listener support class.
• The constants which provide MIME strings for various InfoBus access interfaces, introduced in InfoBus 1.1.1, have changed, to address a bug they caused when running InfoBus components on the Java 2 Platform (code-named JDK 1.2). The spec reflects the new names, which differ only in that the interface names are now fully-qualified.
• Several minor changes have been made to the specification. None of these involve changes to the functionality of the other areas of the InfoBus; rather, they fix wording or spelling problems, disagreements between the spec and the actual API implemented in the InfoBus.jar file, or clarify the intent of certain features.

Note that we have changed the numbering scheme for InfoBus releases. We originally announced that a number of changes, supporting permission and access control, as well as membership based on a BeanContext service, would be available in InfoBus 1.2. These changes are coming soon, but we now call that release InfoBus 2.0. In the future, InfoBus releases numbered with 1.x will support JDK 1.1.x and Java 2 Platform, whereas releases numbered 2.x will require Java 2 Platform and later.

Quality Statement

This release of InfoBus has been fully tested on the platforms listed below, and there are no known bugs. If you do find a problem, please send email to infobus-comments@java.sun.com

Platform Requirements

This release has been qualified to work on Windows 98 and NT 4.0, using JDK 1.1.7b appletviewer, HotJava 1.1.5, Netscape Communicator 4.5, Internet Explorer 4.01 SP1

The Java Plug-in 1.2 was tested with Netscape 4.5 and Internet Explorer 4.01 SP1.

NOTE: Netscape will load applets into different ClassLoader instances if you use Shift + Reload. This can interfere with the sharing of data between InfoBus components.

The gold candidate release will be certified 100% Pure Java. Although this release has not been tested with other platforms, we expect that any platform that correctly supports the Java standard will correctly support InfoBus applications.

Installation and Build Procedure

The javax.infobus package classes have been provided in infobus.jar. You can build the examples from their Java source files using either nmake.exe (we tested using the one from Microsoft Visual C++ version 5.0) or Gnu-make (we tested using the ported version 3.75 from http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/). The nmake makefile is named examples.mak; the Gnu-makefile is named makefile.

1. Create a directory called ib12
2. Use WinZip (or similar) to unpack the ZIP file into ib12 (Note that your zip utility must be capable of handling long file names. Also, make certain that the directory structure in the zip file is preserved when you unpack it.)
3. Make sure your path includes the directory containing either Gnu make or NMake.exe, the directory for JDK 1.1.7b/bin directories, and that the CLASSPATH environment variable points to ib12/infobus.jar.
4. Go to the ib12 directory
5. To build with Gnu make, type make
6. To build with Microsoft nmake, type nmake -nologo /F examples.mak
7. Both the Gnu makefile and Microsoft .mak files will build the ReadRowset and the MoneyBean example applets by recursively making as needed. They will also create a moneybean.jar.
8. After building successfully, use one of the above mentioned browsers to load ib12/ReadRowset.html or ib12/MoneyBeans.html.
9. MoneyBean.jar may also be used in a bean builder.

Directory Structure

ib12	InfoBus core class files in infobus.jar, gif image, ReadMe.html (this file), makefiles to build examples, java sources for examples, a manifest file for MoneyBean.jar and html files for examples
ib12/doc	JavaDoc which describes the API for this Release Candidate.

Related Documentation

• InfoBus JavaDoc class and interface descriptions
• InfoBus Specification on Sun web site

JDK Collections

InfoBus data items can use interfaces defined in the InfoBus specification as well as those defined for the JDK Collections package. Sun has released the JDK Collections in a form that can be used with JDK 1.1.X development platforms. A link is available to download the collection package on the InfoBus page at http://java.sun.com/beans/infobus. For development with InfoBus 1.2 using Java 2 Platform (code-named JDK 1.2), use the java.util interfaces instead of the interim release.

Comments and Questions

Send email to infobus-comments@java.sun.com

Copyright 1999 Sun Microsystems
Copyright 1999 Lotus Development Corporation