• JW's Most Read
• Editor's Choice

Top 10 in 2008

1. Hello, OSGi: Bundles for beginners
2. Eclipse or NetBeans? IDEs compared
3. Is Tomcat enterprise ready?
4. IBATIS, Hibernate, and JPA: Which is right for you?
5. Merging and branching in Subversion 1.5
6. Understanding the Java Persistence API
7. Four harmful Java idioms, and how to fix them
8. Asynchronous HTTP and Comet architectures
9. Introducing Hibernate Search
10. Open source Java projects: Java Native Access

5 popular archives:

1. Introduction to Java threads (1996)
2. Put JSF to work (2004)
3. The Maven 2 POM demystified (2006)
4. Get started with Hibernate (2004)
5. Acegi security in one hour (2007)

All selections are based on page views.

Best of 2008: A developer's list

JW blogger Dustin Marx names his top 10 technology events of 2008. Highlights include updates to Java SE 6, runtime support in OpenLaszlo 4.2, and the clash of the titans that occurred early in the year, when Sun acquired MySQL on the same day that Oracle announced its acquisition of BEA. No two lists are alike and it's not too late: What were your top 10 for 2008?

Also see:

• 2008: Year of the Java Persistence API (JW Blogs)
• Dumb and dumber: Tech's big goofs (CIO.com)
• Here comes 2009: Bold prophesies from IT prognosticators (Network World)

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class RubberBand
{
   private RubberBandCanvas canvas;
   private Point startPoint;
   private Point endPoint;
   private boolean eraseSomething = false;
   private class MouseHandler extends MouseAdapter
   {
      public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e)
      {
         start(e.getPoint()); // anchor the RubberBand
      }
      public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) 
      {
         erase();            // erase the final band
      }
   }
   private class MouseMotionHandler extends MouseMotionAdapter
   {
      public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) 
      {
         erase();            // erase any old bands
         stop(e.getPoint()); // set end point
         draw();             // draw the new band
      }
   }
   public RubberBand(RubberBandCanvas c) 
   {
      super();
      setCanvas(c);
      getCanvas().addMouseListener(new MouseHandler());
      getCanvas().addMouseMotionListener(new MouseMotionHandler());
   }
   protected void draw()
   {
      Graphics g = getCanvas().getGraphics();
      if(g != null)
      {
         try
         {
            // We always want to draw using XOR mode
            // so that we don't need to call redraw
            // to erase the band.
            g.setXORMode(canvas.getBackground());
            drawRubberBand(g);
            // We have drawn something, set the flag
            // to indicate that there is something to erase.
            setEraseSomething(true);
         }
         finally
         {
            g.dispose();
         }
      }
   }
   protected void drawRubberBand(Graphics g)
   {
      // The following if/else block determines where to draw the band.
      // Based on the anchor point, the band may be drawn in any of 
      // four quadrants.  The if/else determines which quadrant to draw
      // the band in. 
      if((getEndPoint().x > getStartPoint().x) && (getEndPoint().y > getStartPoint().y))
      {
         g.drawRect(
            getStartPoint().x,
            getStartPoint().y,
            getEndPoint().x-getStartPoint().x,
            getEndPoint().y-getStartPoint().y
         );
      }
      else if((getEndPoint().x < getStartPoint().x) && (getEndPoint().y < getStartPoint().y))
      {
         g.drawRect(
            getEndPoint().x,
            getEndPoint().y,
            getStartPoint().x-getEndPoint().x,
            getStartPoint().y-getEndPoint().y
         );
      }
      else if((getEndPoint().x > getStartPoint().x) && (getEndPoint().y < getStartPoint().y))
      {
         g.drawRect(
            getStartPoint().x,
            getEndPoint().y,
            getEndPoint().x-getStartPoint().x,
            getStartPoint().y-getEndPoint().y
         );
      }
      else if((getEndPoint().x < getStartPoint().x) && (getEndPoint().y > getStartPoint().y))
      {
         g.drawRect(
            getEndPoint().x,
            getStartPoint().y,
            getStartPoint().x-getEndPoint().x,
            getEndPoint().y-getStartPoint().y
         );
      }
   }
   protected void erase()
   {
      // We only erase if there is something to erase!
      if(getEraseSomething())
      {
         draw();
         setEraseSomething(false);
      }
   }
   protected final RubberBandCanvas getCanvas() { return this.canvas; }
   protected final Point getEndPoint()
   {
      if(this.endPoint == null)
      {
         setEndPoint(new Point(0,0));
      }
         return this.endPoint;
   }
   protected final boolean getEraseSomething() { return this.eraseSomething; }
   protected final Point getStartPoint()
   {
      if(this.startPoint == null)
      {
         setStartPoint(new Point(0,0));
      }
      return this.startPoint;
   }
   protected final void setCanvas(RubberBandCanvas c) { this.canvas = c; }
   protected final void setEndPoint(Point newValue) { this.endPoint = newValue; }
   protected final void setEraseSomething(boolean newValue)
   {
      this.eraseSomething = newValue;
   }
   protected final void setStartPoint(Point newValue) { this.startPoint = newValue; }
   protected void start(Point p)
   {
      // anchor the band
      setEndPoint(p);
      setStartPoint(p);
   }
   protected void stop(Point p)
   {
      // set the end point, but no coordinate should be < 0
      if(p.x < 0)
      {
         p.x = 0;
      }
      if(p.y < 0)
      {
         p.y = 0;
      }
      setEndPoint(p);
   }
}