Java 2 Platform

XML Processing

The Java API for XML processing has been added to the Java 2 Platform. J2SE 1.4.0 provides basic support for processing XML documents through a standardized set of APIs. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/xml/index.html.

New I/O APIs

The new I/O (NIO) API provides new features and improved performance in the areas of buffer management, character-set support, regular-expression matching, file I/O, and scalable network I/O. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/nio/index.html.

Security

The Java™ Cryptography Extension (JCE), Java™ Secure Socket Extension (JSSE), and Java™ Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) security features have now been integrated into J2SE v 1.4 rather than being optional packages.
There are two new security features:
- The Java™ GSS-API can be used for securely exchanging messages between communicating applications using the Kerberos V5 mechanism. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/jgss/tutorials/index.html.
- The Java™ Certification Path API includes new classes and methods in the java.security.cert package that allow you to build and validate certification paths (also known as "certificate chains"). For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/certpath/CertPathProgGuide.html.
Due to import control restrictions, the JCE jurisdiction policy files shipped with the J2SE, v 1.4 allow "strong" but limited cryptography to be used. An "unlimited" version of these files indicating no restrictions on cryptographic strengths is available.
The JSSE implementation provided in this release includes the strong cipher suites. However, due to U.S. export control restrictions, it does not allow the default SSLSocketFactory and SSLServerSocketFactory to be replaced. For more information, please see the JSSE Reference Guide at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/jsse/JSSERefGuide.html.
With the integration of JAAS into the J2SE, the java.security.Policy API handles Principal-based queries, and the default policy implementation supports Principal-based grant entries. Thus, access control can now be based not just on what code is running, but also on who is running it.
Support for dynamic policies has been added. In J2SE releases prior to version 1.4, classes were statically bound with permissions by querying security policy during class loading. The lifetime of this binding was scoped by the lifetime of the class loader. In version 1.4 this binding is now deferred until needed by a security check. The lifetime of the binding is now scoped by the lifetime of the security policy.

For more information on security in J2SE 1.4, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/index.html.

Java 2D™ Technology

Java 2D™ technology includes many new features including performance improvements, support for hardware acceleration for offscreen images, a pluggable image I/O framework, a new print service API, and several new font features. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/2d/new_features.html.

Image I/O Framework

The Java Image I/O Framework provides a pluggable architecture for working with images that are stored in files and accessed across the network. This framework offers substantially more flexibility and power than the pre-J2SE 1.4.0 APIs for loading and saving images. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/imageio/index.html.

Java Print Service API

The Java Print Service is a new Java Print API that enables client and server applications to:

Discover and select print services based on their capabilities
Specify the format of print data
Submit print jobs to services that support the document type to be printed.

For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/jps/index.html.

AWT

Changes to the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) package center on improving the robustness, behavior, and performance of programs that present a graphical user interface. Improvements include the following:

A new focus architecture replaces the previous implementation and addresses many focus-related bugs that were caused by platform inconsistencies, and incompatibilities between AWT and Swing components.
The new full-screen exclusive mode API supports high-performance graphics by suspending the windowing system so that drawing can be rendered directly to the screen. This capacity benefits applications such as games, or other rendering-intensive applications.
Headless support is now enabled by new graphics environment methods that indicate whether a display, keyboard, and mouse can be supported in a graphics environment.
The ability to disable native frame decorations is now available for applications that need complete control of the specification of a frame's appearance. When enabled, it prevents the rendering of a native title bar, system menu, border, or other native screen components.
The mouse wheel, with a scroll wheel in place of the middle mouse button, is enabled with new built-in Java support for scrolling with the mouse wheel. Also, a new mouse wheel listener class allows customization of mouse wheel behavior.
The AWT package has been modified to be fully 64-bit compliant and now runs on Solaris machines with 64-bit and 32-bit addresses.

For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/awt/AWTChanges.html.

Swing

Many new features have been added to Swing:

The spinner component is a single line input field that enables the user to select a number or a value by cycling through a sequence of values with a tiny pair of up/down arrow buttons.
The new formatted text field component allows formatting of dates, numbers, and strings, such as a text field that accepts only decimal currency values.
A new drag-and-drop architecture provides seamless drag-and-drop support between components as well as an easy way to implement drag-and-drop in your customized Swing components. You need only to write a couple of methods that describe the particulars of your data model.

Several features have been enhanced in Swing:

The progress bar component has been enhanced to support an indeterminate state. Rather than showing the degree of completeness, the indeterminate progress bar uses constant animation to show that a time-consuming operation is occurring.
The tabbed pane component has been enhanced to support scrollable tabs. With this feature enabled, if all the tabs cannot fit within a single tab run, the tabbed pane component displays a single, scrollable run of tabs instead of wrapping the tabs onto multiple runs.
The popup and popup factory classes, which were previously package private, have been exposed and made public so that developers can customize or create their own popups.
The new focus architecture is fully integrated into Swing.

For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/swing/SwingChanges.html.


	Java 2 Platform XML Processing The Java API for XML processing has been added to the Java 2 Platform. J2SE 1.4.0 provides basic support for processing XML documents through a standardized set of APIs. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/xml/index.html. New I/O APIs The new I/O (NIO) API provides new features and improved performance in the areas of buffer management, character-set support, regular-expression matching, file I/O, and scalable network I/O. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/nio/index.html. Security The Java™ Cryptography Extension (JCE), Java™ Secure Socket Extension (JSSE), and Java™ Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) security features have now been integrated into J2SE v 1.4 rather than being optional packages. There are two new security features: The Java™ GSS-API can be used for securely exchanging messages between communicating applications using the Kerberos V5 mechanism. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/jgss/tutorials/index.html. The Java™ Certification Path API includes new classes and methods in the `java.security.cert` package that allow you to build and validate certification paths (also known as "certificate chains"). For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/certpath/CertPathProgGuide.html. Due to import control restrictions, the JCE jurisdiction policy files shipped with the J2SE, v 1.4 allow "strong" but limited cryptography to be used. An "unlimited" version of these files indicating no restrictions on cryptographic strengths is available. The JSSE implementation provided in this release includes the strong cipher suites. However, due to U.S. export control restrictions, it does not allow the default `SSLSocketFactory` and `SSLServerSocketFactory` to be replaced. For more information, please see the JSSE Reference Guide at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/jsse/JSSERefGuide.html. With the integration of JAAS into the J2SE, the `java.security.Policy` API handles Principal-based queries, and the default policy implementation supports Principal-based grant entries. Thus, access control can now be based not just on what code is running, but also on who is running it. Support for dynamic policies has been added. In J2SE releases prior to version 1.4, classes were statically bound with permissions by querying security policy during class loading. The lifetime of this binding was scoped by the lifetime of the class loader. In version 1.4 this binding is now deferred until needed by a security check. The lifetime of the binding is now scoped by the lifetime of the security policy. For more information on security in J2SE 1.4, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/security/index.html. Java 2D™ Technology Java 2D™ technology includes many new features including performance improvements, support for hardware acceleration for offscreen images, a pluggable image I/O framework, a new print service API, and several new font features. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/2d/new_features.html. Image I/O Framework The Java Image I/O Framework provides a pluggable architecture for working with images that are stored in files and accessed across the network. This framework offers substantially more flexibility and power than the pre-J2SE 1.4.0 APIs for loading and saving images. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/imageio/index.html. Java Print Service API The Java Print Service is a new Java Print API that enables client and server applications to: Discover and select print services based on their capabilities Specify the format of print data Submit print jobs to services that support the document type to be printed. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/jps/index.html. AWT Changes to the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) package center on improving the robustness, behavior, and performance of programs that present a graphical user interface. Improvements include the following: A new focus architecture replaces the previous implementation and addresses many focus-related bugs that were caused by platform inconsistencies, and incompatibilities between AWT and Swing components. The new full-screen exclusive mode API supports high-performance graphics by suspending the windowing system so that drawing can be rendered directly to the screen. This capacity benefits applications such as games, or other rendering-intensive applications. Headless support is now enabled by new graphics environment methods that indicate whether a display, keyboard, and mouse can be supported in a graphics environment. The ability to disable native frame decorations is now available for applications that need complete control of the specification of a frame's appearance. When enabled, it prevents the rendering of a native title bar, system menu, border, or other native screen components. The mouse wheel, with a scroll wheel in place of the middle mouse button, is enabled with new built-in Java support for scrolling with the mouse wheel. Also, a new mouse wheel listener class allows customization of mouse wheel behavior. The AWT package has been modified to be fully 64-bit compliant and now runs on Solaris machines with 64-bit and 32-bit addresses. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/awt/AWTChanges.html. Swing Many new features have been added to Swing: The spinner component is a single line input field that enables the user to select a number or a value by cycling through a sequence of values with a tiny pair of up/down arrow buttons. The new formatted text field component allows formatting of dates, numbers, and strings, such as a text field that accepts only decimal currency values. A new drag-and-drop architecture provides seamless drag-and-drop support between components as well as an easy way to implement drag-and-drop in your customized Swing components. You need only to write a couple of methods that describe the particulars of your data model. Several features have been enhanced in Swing: The progress bar component has been enhanced to support an indeterminate state. Rather than showing the degree of completeness, the indeterminate progress bar uses constant animation to show that a time-consuming operation is occurring. The tabbed pane component has been enhanced to support scrollable tabs. With this feature enabled, if all the tabs cannot fit within a single tab run, the tabbed pane component displays a single, scrollable run of tabs instead of wrapping the tabs onto multiple runs. The popup and popup factory classes, which were previously package private, have been exposed and made public so that developers can customize or create their own popups. The new focus architecture is fully integrated into Swing. For more information, see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/swing/SwingChanges.html.