Mac OS X Port Project Status

This page outlines the status of high-level feature areas to bring from Apple's Java SE 6 to the Mac OS X port of JDK 7u4.

7u4 is now complete; 7u6 is in active development in jdk7u-dev.

A list of popular open issues is available at the JIRA bug reporter.

Features in the macosx-port src repository

• Build
  • build using clang
  • build .jdk bundle (for CommandLine and embedded use only)
  • build embeddable .jre bundle
    •  build JavaAppLauncher stub
• HotSpot
  • remove ALWAYS_PASS_TEST_GAMMA hack
  • register new threads as ObjC-GC capable
  • DTrace v2-style probes
• Core Libraries
  •  Load .jnilib (in addition to .dylib) - fixed for 7u4!

• • Precomposed/Decomposed File path translation
  • NIO
    • kqueue based Selectors
    •  WatchService implementation (kqueue-based)
    •  WatchService implementation (polling-based)
    • Async I/O API
  • Proxy Server handling
  • Locale support
  • System properties fixup (vendor name, etc)
    • Resolve "Darwin" vs. "Mac OS X" checks
• JNI interface
• Networking
• X11
• Universal binaries
• JObjC
  • get tests passing
  • self-generate BridgeSupport full files
• Cocoa AWT
  • 2D drawing (OpenGL based)
    • OpenGL layer needs to be vended from an NSOpenGLLayer (10.6+)
  • Cocoa key/text events
    • cleanup to use JRSEvent API
  • merge JDK6 CWindow -> LWCWindow changes and style flags
  • update CImage
  • Transparent window support
  • Headless
  • remove $AWT_TOOLKIT=CToolkit, switch to default
  • threading cleanup
• Aqua LaF
  • Requires an image tile cache
  • Screen Menu Bar
    • Needs cleanup to use JRSMenu API
  • Needs refresh from Apple trunk
• Fonts/Text drawing
  • Needs cleanup to use JRSFont API
• Accessibility
• Clipboard
• Drag & Drop
• InputMethod support
• AppleScript javax.script engine
• Sound
• Printing
• Keychain Provider
• JAWT (for SWT/3D embedding)
• Smartcard
• Fix Kerberos code to read config info from SCDynamicStore (needed on Lion) | http://java.net/jira/browse/MACOSX_PORT-566]
• AWT Desktop API
• System Tray

Features not yet ported from Apple's Java SE 6

• Bundled app launching
  •  JavaApplicationStub replacement
    •  Stub source now checked in. More tools for bundling an app are coming.
    •  Stub and AWT reviewed for sandboxing
      •  need to fix JavaSound, launcher stub, and remove dependency on X11 libfreetype.

Features not in public macosx-port ("deploy" is private to Oracle). You'll have to trust us on these – deploy is not ready to be open-sourced.

• Applets/Plugin2
  • Need to create .plugin bundle
    • Need to embed slimmed JRE into .plugin bundle
  •  Need NPAPI/Cocoa event -> Java event conversion
  • Need the LWAWT to render into NSOpenGLLayer (see above)
    • Need cross-process CALayer connection mechanism to be exposed
  •  Need to determine update mechanism (Sparkle.framework?)
  •  JavaFx support
• Web Start
  • Need to determine delivery vehicle (inside Applet plug-in, or some other form) – Java Web Start.app will find javaws in the deployment bundle and execute that. Requires at least 10.7.3.
  •  Shortcut support
•  Java Preferences 
  •  UI cleanup: Look better on Mac OS X
  •   Preference pane

Non-feature tasks

• Merge BSDPort into mainline jdk so that Mac OS X Port can be inserted into mainline:
  • Merge BSDPort hotspot, patch and description at: BSDPort, Description of jdk7 changes
• Move internal bugs to http://java.net/jira/browse/MACOSX_PORT
• Write up development wiki pages for
  • Quickstart
  • Status
  • Compiler changes/issues
  • Cocoa & Java crash course
  • Threading manifesto
  • Memory management manifesto
  • AppKit Threading & Cocoa Memory Management best practices examples
  • Internal "Adopt-an-app" testing workflows
• Port private JUnit harness tests to jtreg
  • Detailed status

Non-Features

These features will not be ported to OpenJDK from the Apple Java SE 6 port

• MacRoman default encoding
  • UTF-8 only, for all locales/languages
• NSView-based AWT heavyweight widgets
  • LWAWT Swing-based widgets only
• NSView-based JAWT embedding
  • CALayer embedding instead
• CocoaComponent
  • Use CALayer-based JAWT embedding instead
• SWT Carbon EventLoop support
  • No 32-bit only technologies, Cocoa only
• JNI instantiation through the JavaVM.framework
  • Embed your own JRE instead
• Apple JavaApplicationStub
  • Use the new JavaAppLauncher, loads an embedded .jre, JavaApplicationStub compatible
• Apple native crypto
  • Use standard Java crypto
• HotSpot Shared Archive Generation
  • Automatic JSA creation is of limited use until HotSpot supports class sharing in 64-bit, and in all garbage collectors