GNU JAF: JavaBeans™ Activation Framework

Introduction

GNU JAF is a framework for declaring what beans operate on what MIME type data. Content handler beans can be defined to handle particular MIME content. The JAF unites internet standards for declaring content with JavaBeans™.

The JAF defines two mechanisms within the framework. The first, the file type map, specifies the MIME content type for a given file. The default implementation of this uses the UNIX mime.types format to map filename extensions to MIME types. The second mechanism, the command map, specifies the actions that can be applied to a given MIME content type. The default implementation of this uses the standard mailcap format to map actions to JavaBean™ classes. These beans can then view, edit, print, or perform whatever other action is required on the underlying resource.

Download

The current stable release of GNU JAF is version 1.0, available here.

Alternatively, you can download the current source from CVS here, module activation.

API documentation

You can build the API documentation yourself or browse it online here (no frames).

We need help

Development of the JAF is finished but we'd still like your feedback on what content beans should be included. We currently supply only:

an image viewer,
a text viewer, and
a text editor.

However, ideally we'd like to build a large repository of beans that could be accessed over the internet. If you have any ideas about content type handlers please contact Chris Burdess.

If you're a programmer and you're interested in JavaBeans™ why not help us out with building the content handlers? See the classpathx project page for more information.

Discussing the JAF

If you want to talk with other developers about JAF you can use the classpathx discussion list. If you're not subscribed to this list you can do so by sending a mail with the subject subscribe to: classpathx-discuss-request@gnu.org.

Acknowledgements

Andrew Selkirk set up the project initially. The current 1.0.2 implementation was written by Chris Burdess.

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