Recently, Gilles Pommereuil suggested that we take a look at the Storm Music Studio from Arturia Software in France. A free evaluation copy of the software is available, and I can say from personal experience that the application is loads of fun: you can use it to play compositions other folks have created with Storm, and you can create your own.

Although Storm does contain some native code for sound processing and dealing with audio/midi drivers, the GUI is all Java and the entire app runs on Java2 on Windows and Mac. If you like music with an eyeful of GUI, give this app a try!

The Arturia website is at: www.arturia.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Even if you have been living under a rock, there's no way you could have missed the importance that XML has assumed in every kind of software.

In August of this year TIBCO released a suite of XML products called "TIBCO Extensibility". The suite includes two products with great looking Swing GUIs: Turbo XML, and XML Transform.

Turbo XML is an editor for XML source, schemas, and DTDs. XML Transform is for creating and debugging XSLT stylesheets. Free evaluation copies are available, feel free to check them out.

The TIBCO website is at: www.extensibility.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Kim Haagensen, who's a Bioinformatics and Genomics Research Scientist at Exiqon in Denmark was kind enough to send us a pointer to the Apollo Genome Browser - a nice looking Swing application for browsing and annotating the genetic blueprints for all living things, notably fuitflies and people. If you're reading this column, chances are you're not a geneticist, however if you know one, send them a pointer to this application. It's a nice piece of work.

Ensembl's Apollo website is at: www.ensembl.org/apollo

(note: click on the images for larger views)

The ILOG folks were kind enough to send us this description of the JViews product:

ILOG JViews Component Suite is a set of 100% Java components for building visually rich, highly interactive Web-based user interfaces. Developers can create Web displays that integrate data-aware graphics atop maps, data relationships into diagrams, and schedule data into Gantt charts. ILOG JViews is the ideal solution wherever there's a need for intuitive displays that go beyond simple forms and dialogs.

The ILOG JViews site is at: www.ilog.com/products/jviews

(note: click on the images for larger views)

If you try and stay on top of loads of active web sites you may be familiar with an XML protocol called RSS that web sites use to publish lists of their headlines. It's not clear exactly what RSS stands for, however many sites automatically generate RSS files and put them where those in the know can find them.

John Munsch has written a nice application called HotSheet that collects RSS files and displays the headlines in a big list. You can browse the article that corresponds to a list entry by double clicking. Give it a click!

HotSheet can be found at John's website here: www.johnmunsch.com/projects/HotSheet

(note: click on the images for larger views)

You've built that big multi-tier web site and your hoping that survive the usage onslaught that's sure to occur when your press release hits the streets, but - how to know for sure?

Pureload is a product from Minq Software AB (formerly Innovative-IT Development) that helps you stress test your site, collect performance statistics, and analyze the results.

And ofcourse there's a nice Swing GUI to make it all easy!

The Pureload website is at: www.pureload.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Recently Tom Gutwin sent us a pointer to a great looking Swing application he's been using to browse Java documentation called "Pecuchet".

Pecuchet and it's companion javadoc Doclet called "Bouvard" were written (with JEdit) by Amedeo Farello. The Bouvard doclet generates an XML description of the documentation which can be viewed with Pecuchet. Amedo provided this explanation for the names of his creations: "Bouvard and Pecuchet are the main characters of the homonymous unfinished novel by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880). They are a couple of clerks who leave their jobs to throw themselves, with the candour of the plain people, into the exhaustive exploration of the entire human knowledge."

True to form, these tools manage to put an enormous amount of useful information on the screen. In screenshots below, I'm browsing the javadoc for the JEdit sources.

The Pecuchet website is at: web.tiscali.it/farello/bp/intro.html

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Xybrix is an Open Source toolkit for building applications that are configured with XML files. The central part of the Xybrix toolkit is a Swing-based implementation of xforms, which allows forms to be defined, as collections of individual components, within an XML file.

There's even a Java Speech API based "plugin" that allows GUIs defined this way to be voice controlled.

If you're interested in building a nice looking Multiple Document Interface style application that's driven by XML, take a look at this!

The Xybrix website can be found here: www.jbrix.org

(note: click on the images for larger views)

This description of the HIPAA Inspector app pictured below was lifted verbatim from the eservices site. I couldn't have said it any better myself: eServices Group has developed desktop applications that facilitate the creation and interpretation of the new standardized (X12) healthcare transactions that are mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

HIPAA aims to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in healthcare delivery by standardizing electronic data interchange (EDI). One of these new standards is the X12 835, or claims payment & remittance advice.

The purpose of the HIPAA Inspector, eServices Group's desktop application that is used to interpret the X12 835 format, is to increase the number of healthcare providers who can accept electronic data -- thereby reducing the cost of administering health services and increasing the effectiveness of the data contained in the new standardized electronic formats.

The HIPAA Inspector, in its current form, automatically loads and interprets an X12 835 file. This file is essentially the provider's accounts receivable report, and can be used by healthcare payer organizations and healthcare providers to quickly interpret what claims have been paid, are pending, or have been denied, facilitating the business process

The eServices Group website is at: www.esrv.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Sometimes you don't need look any farther than your own back yard. JM Studio is an application written by the Java Media Framework folks here in the Java software group to show off some of the things that one can do with JMF. And it works great as a general purpose media player too. I had no trouble playing the MP3 audio and MPEG video files I downloaded with the Limewire file sharing application and the GUI isn't big and ugly like the one that came with my PC's OS.

JM Studio can be found at: java.sun.com/products/java-media/jmf

(note: click on the images for larger views)

IzPack is a free Java installer builder written by Julien Ponge. As you can see, it uses the (always beautiful) Kunstoff Look and Feel.

To use it you create an XML description file for your app installer and then compile it with a command-line tool. To get a feel for what kind of installers can be produced, try downloading and executing IzPack itself!

The IzForge website is at: www.izforge.com/izpack

(note: click on the images for larger views)

The NAViLIS product from LIBeLIS (yow!) creates Swing GUIs from an XML description file that can be generated directly from Java classes.

NAViLIS stands for NAVigation In Large Information Systems. The XML description file defines a GUI for a "Java Data Object", a Java object who's state is transparently backed by some persistent store, typicallya database.

You can check out the LIBeLIS website here: www.libelis.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Here's a cool programmers text editing component, it's a commercial product from WingSoft. WingSoft also makes a Java IDE and some obfusfaction and decompilation tools.

As you can see, the text editor supports syntax based coloring. The editor's API looks straightforward. A commercial license is about $500, however you can give the editor test drive for free!

The WingTec website is here: www.wingsoft.com/wingtec.html

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Sometimes open source groups pick fanciful names for their creations, and sometimes they focus their creative energies exclusively on the software. That seems to be the case with "JOE" the Java Outline Editor.

JOE looks like a great application for creating and maintaining lists and address books and all of the other hierarchical data in your life. People use applications like this all the time on their Palm hand helds, perhaps it's time for a SavaJe port of JOE!

The JOE website is at: outliner.sourceforge.net

(note: click on the images for larger views)

If you've already read your copy of the November issue of "Popular Communications" magazine, then you've heard about the WorldStation short wave radio software from DXTRA. On the other hand, if you're like me and you're still not sure why shortwave enthusiasts are called "hams", take a look at this.

It's a black box that contains a shortwave receiver that plugs into your PC, and a very slick looking Java application for operating the hardware. I wish there was something this nice for my FM radio!

The Dxtra website is at: www.dxtra.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)

Yes in fact that is the raciest screenshot we've published (so far) in this column! It's a snapshot of an application called Storypad developed by IDR Solutions in the UK. The application is a "textual reprocessing engine" that allows one to extract content from HTML, XML, and PDF format documents for the sake of search or storage or for republishing in some other context.

Brendan Hillary, who alerted us about this application, noted that the biggest Storypad client so far is Rupert Murdoch's News International (Europe's largest publisher) where it is in 24X7 use on their production systems on both Solaris and Windows!

The IDR Solutions website is at: www.idrsolutions.com

(note: click on the images for larger views)