Part II of “Faster JTextPane Text Insertion” describes another technique for overcoming some of JTextPane‘s performance limitations when initiatializing large documents with complex styles. The ElementSpec class, defined as part of DefaultStyledDocument, provides a way to batch updates and apply them in bulk. Depending on size and complexity of the document, the speed boost can be significant.
Why are JTextPane inserts so slow?
Inserting a large amount of styled text into a JTextPane can be painfully slow. Part I of “Faster JTextPane Text Insertion” examines two sources of sluggishness and illustrates a simple solution for one of them. (Part II will describe an additional solution.)
Squid Corrupts Jar Files?
The open-source Squid web cache can be used to speed up the download of WebStart applications. Several weeks after such a deployment, however, corrupt jar file errors started appearing. “Squid Corrupts Jar Files?” explains the problem and describes the (simple) solution.
Missing Bold and Italic Fonts on Panther
Users of Microsoft Office on Panther (Mac OSX 10.3) may find that bold and italic fonts no longer work in JDK 1.4 applications. “Java Font Problems under Panther” describes a quick fix.
Low-Memory Deep Copies
“Faster Deep Copies of Java Objects” explains the concept of “deep copies” of Java objects and illustrates a common approach for copying objects using Java Object Serialization. “Low-Memory Deep Copy Technique for Java Objects” presents an alternate technique that trades speed for space.
Setting JTextPane Font and Color
Swing’s JTextPane supports styled text, embedded images and components, and other features not available in the AWT TextArea. However, basic operations like setting the font and color for the text are somewhat more complicated with JTextPane than with TextArea and other simpler text components. “Setting JTextPane Font and Color” illustrates the use of character attributes for setting these text properties.
Speeding Up Deep Copies
You can use Java Object Serialization to make deep copies of Java objects, creating distinct copies of an object and all of the objects that it references. “Faster Deep Copies of Java Objects” explains the difference between deep copies and shallow copies (as implemented by the clone method), shows a common approach to using Java Object Serialization for copies, and then provides some simple optimizations to squeeze a bit more speed out of the deep copy process.
DateFormat/SimpleDateFormat Examples
Java’s DateFormat and SimpleDateFormat classes, introduced in Java 1.1, provide a simple way to parse and format dates. “DateFormat and SimpleDateFormat Examples” gives a basic overview of these classes.
Vanishing Text Selections
In Java 1.3, opening a menu will temporarily hide selections in Swing text components. The glitch is mostly harmless, but can be disconcerting for users who are, for examples, selecting clipboard operations from a menu. “Fixing Disappearing Text Selections when a Menu is Opened” describes a simple fix for the problem.
Before you sign up for a Virtual Dedicated Server…
Virtual Dedicated Servers (or Virtual Private Servers) provide a cost-effective alternative to dedicated servers for many kinds of application deployments. There are, however, some subtle issues with deploying Java applications on these systems. “Deploying Java Apps on a Virtual Dedicated Server” describes some questions you may want to ask before signing up with a VDS hosting service.