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JIGS |
Contents
[ Introduction | State | Documentation | Download JIGS | Example | | ]
Introduction
JIGS is the Java Interface to GNUstep. It is a library allowing integration between Java and Objective-C. The main purpose of JIGS is to allow Java programmers to use the GNUstep libraries from Java.
JIGS is more than a set of bindings for GNUstep from Java; JIGS takes advantage of the fact that Objective-C and Java are very similar languages to make it possible to use Objective-C classes from Java using exactly the same API (and vice versa). You have to learn the GNUstep API only once, and then you can use it both from Objective-C and from Java in the same way! Moreover, JIGS can generate automatically wrappers for your own Objective-C GNUstep libraries.
JIGS allows you to write optimized classes and components in Objective-C, and make them available to Java developers. In the typical configuration, fast Objective-C components and libraries are used in the backend, and JIGS is used to integrate them smoothly in a Java front-end. Moving from one language to the other is as easy as it can possibly be with two different languages.
JIGS is free software and part of the GNU project, freely available from the Free Software Foundation under the GNU LGPL.
State
Currently JIGS is usable but in need of a maintainer. JIGS is currently maintained by Nicola Pero in a maintenance-only capacity. JIGS reqires a java development environment supporting JNI 1.2, as well as GNUstep-base and GNUstep-make, and optionally GNUstep-gui and GNUstep-back. Brainstorm Computer Solutions funded most of the development of JIGS. SKYRiX Software AG funded most of the developments of JIGS 1.3.x and 1.4.x, including number object morphing, libFoundation support, and other improvements.
Documentation
For installation help, please refer to the INSTALL file included in the JIGS package. Links to the JIGS Manual can be found below. This is the manual and reference included in JIGS 1.5.0. The latest version of the JIGS Manual is included in the Source code distribution both in latex source code and html.
Download JIGS
The last offically released version of JIGS is 1.5.5. It can be downloaded here
You can also get a recent snapshot of JIGS using GNUstep's public CVS. Please see the GNUstep project page for more information.
Example
GUI Examples
Here is the source code of a tiny GNUstep gui application written in Java: NSWindowTest (taken from the Testing/Java directory in JIGS 0.8.0). And here is a screenshot of this code in action, running under JIGS 0.8.0.
