JHotDraw as Open-Source Project

Introduction

JHotDraw is a Java GUI framework for technical andstructured Graphics. It has been developed as a "designexercise" but is already quite powerful. Its design reliesheavily on some well-known design patterns. JHotDraw's originalauthors have been Erich Gamma and Thomas Eggenschwiler.

There is a JHotDraw6.0 beta 1 release available for download!

You find the project page underhttp://www.sourceforge.net/projects/jhotdraw.

It includes a download page with an index of allreleases and several discussion forums about JHotDraw-related topics.

Aims

The aim of making JHotDraw an open-source project is:

• to gain a wider audience for this framework among developers

• to build new applications based upon JHotDraw

• to let application development influence the development of JHotDraw

• to add new and advanced features

• to drive its further development

• to port JHotDraw to new Java GUI toolkits

• to enhance and refactor the exisiting code

• to identify new design patterns and refactorings

• to make it an example for a well-designed and flexible framework

• to examine the relevance of new Java APIs to JHotDraw (e.g. usefulness of Java 2D API for JHotDraw)

• to learn and to have fun

Any developer and software designer who wants to contribute iswelcome! Please have a look at the listof applications that have been built using JHotDraw.

Downloads

latest version to download: JHotDraw6.0 beta 1

You can downloadthe latestpackaged version (currently version 5.3) or earlier versions(most notably 5.2).
There is a newJHotDraw 6.0 beta 1 release available which uses the newpackage structure of "org.jhotdraw" instead of the old"CH.ifa.draw" package structure. This release is identicalto the 5.4 beta 2 release except for the package structure. Both giveyou a preview of some up-coming features.

Online Information

JavaWorld published anintroductionaryarticle "Become a programming Picasso with JHotDraw".The accompanying example application JModeller - a simple UML editorbuilt using JHotDraw - shows some of the described design patternsand demonstrates how to use and extend existing classes. An updatedversion of JModeller is compatible with JHotDraw 5.3.Furthermore, JHotDraw 5.4b1 requires somechanges as well (many thanks to Christian Ullenboom and PeterMorch for their updates). The mostrecent version of JModeller is a CVS snapshot and is based onJHotDraw 6.0.

Besides the documentation which is included in the downloadpackage more information about the internal architecture of JHotDrawand guidance for using the JHotDraw can be found here:

• A description of the design patterns used in JHotDraw in the form of a pattern language by Douglas Kirk. Especially, the pattern index in form of a clickable pattern map shows the relation of different patterns.

• A case study about an older version of JHotDraw can be found in the dissertation of Dirk Riehle.

Survey Results

The results to the survey"Applications for JHotDraw" may give you someimpressions about the usability and applicability of the JHotDrawframework to your requirements. Of course, the result serves asstarting point for our further development as well. Please note thatsome of the problems and difficulties related to the framework havebeen removed already.

Get Involved

JHotDraw is hosted on SourceForge.You can have a look at the internal JHotDrawdeveloper web page and registeras developer at SourceForge.Please contact one of the admins for the JHotDraw project to getadded as a developer.