Java 6 ‘Mustang’ New Desktop Features Announced

A bit slow off the mark on this one, but an Australian long weekend will do that, I guess. Sun has published an article detailing the new desktop features it is working on for the next major release of Java, codenamed “Mustang”.

As with the publicly available snapshot builds, Sun is adopting an “open and honest” policy with this article, explaining what it hopes to include in Java 6.0–not necessarily what it can guarantee will be in it. Some features may be dropped if they are infeasible or will take too long to make the 6.0 release (as the shared VM was for Java 5.0).

Some of the highlights for me:

• True double buffering
  No more “grey window” when switching to a Java application/applet that has been in the background for awhile.
• Native Windows and GTK Look and Feel rendering
  Will use the native operating system’s APIs for rendering user interface components where possible to match perfectly the look of native apps.
• Font anti-aliasing (including LCD subpixel rendering)
  Will respect the settings of the native OS to produce text rendering on par with ClearType on Windows.
• Full support for Firefox
  As opposed to simply supporting Mozilla, as is the case now.

Previously: Get your Java 6.0 builds here!, A Shared Virtual Machine at Last?