FINAL PROPOSAL: Portable GUI backends

Sun Mar 2 04:35:56 PST 2008

Hello,

This is our final proposal submission for a project to improve the AWT
and Java2D interfaces to enable the implementation of external
backends to AWT/Java2D.

Cheers,
Mario

Final proposal
--------------

                              Portable GUI Backends

                           Roman Kennke and Mario Torre
                                  aicas GmbH

0. Summary
----------

In order to support the spread of Java for graphical applications,
particularly in embedded systems, aicas proposes to improve the AWT and
Java2D in OpenJDK to enable easier porting of AWT to new platforms.

1. Introduction
---------------

The AWT is designed as an abstract toolkit (hence the name: abstract
windowing toolkit).  There is a public Java API, which is the same
across all platforms, and platform specific implementation code for each
supported platform.  These two parts are isolated from each other
through the AWT peer interface.  This basically comprises the classes
java.awt.Toolkit, java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment, the interfaces in
java.awt.peer (which are not part of the spec), and a couple of related
classes.  By implementing these interfaces, it should be possible to
create new backend implementations for AWT and (by extension) Java2D.

Unfortunately, the current implementations do not abide by this
interface.  In various places in Swing and AWT, this interface is
circumvented and OpenJDK specific implementation classes
(e.g. SunToolkit, SunGraphics2D) are called directly.  This defeats the
whole purpose of having such an interface in the first place and makes
porting AWT to new platforms unnecessarily hard or impossible without
modifying Swing and AWT themselves.  Not only does the code simply
assume that the current implementation is the OpenJDK implementation,
but the interface itself is often incomplete.

To make things even worse, there is not an interface for font
implementations.  Instead, there is only one font implementation tied
into various places in OpenJDK.  Using this implementation in a new AWT
backend implementation should, in theory at least, be possible; but again,
the font implementation is so tied to internal implementation classes
(e.g. SunGraphicsEnvironment) that this would not work either.  Having a
cleanly separated interface for the font implementation would enable
reusing the existing implementation in a new AWT backend, or even for
replacing the font implementation, e.g., with a platform-specific one.

At a lower level in the Java2D stack, there are various interfaces and
extension points which enable easy porting of the graphics stack.  The
OpenJDK Java 2D implementation has a rendering pipeline with various
generic pipes and render loops, which make porting the graphics stack as
easy as providing a render loop for setting and getting single pixels
from the render surface, but still can be optimized by providing more
powerful primitives.  Usually graphics primitives such as lines,
rectangles, and circles are needed for good performance, but one can
also include more sophisticated operations such as blits, compositing,
and transparency.  This is generally a very well thought out design, but
is also not without its problems.  Because nobody seems to have ever
created a AWT/Java2D port to another platform, the architecture does not
allow for flexible extension at some points, e.g., volatile images[1].

2. Goals and Deliverables
-------------------------

The project will have two parts.  The first one focuses on the extending
the external interface.  The second on documenting and cleaning up the
internal Java2D interface.  In the end, it should be much easier to port
to a new platform.  This will be demonstrated with a concrete example.

2.1 Extenal AWT/Java2D Peer Interface
-------------------------------------

As described above, it is currently not possible to provide an
external implementations for the AWT and Java2D peer interfaces.  The
first goal of this project is to clean up the interface and the Swing
and AWT implementation, so that it is possible to create an AWT
backend without changing any details in Swing or elsewhere.  It is
important to note that there already are a couple of such
implementations.  For example, the FBToolkit project [2] and the Escher
and GTK based peers in GNU Classpath [3], all of which require hacks
and patches to OpenJDK code to actually work with OpenJDK.  This
subproject would cover the following tasks.

- Improve Swing and AWT, so that they do not rely on specific
  implementation details.

- Add functionality to the AWT peer interface where necessary.

- Propose a new interface for font implementations.  This should at
  least enable the reuse of existing font implemenation in new AWT
  stacks.  Ideally one could even use an external implementation for
  fonts.

- Document all the necessary interfaces which are required to port AWT
  backends.

- Create a proof-of-concept AWT/Java2D peer implementation that makes
  use of these public interfaces (and not the internal implementation
  classes).

- Provide test cases for changed and new code.

2.2 Internal Java2D Interfaces
------------------------------

Implementing a whole complete and compatible Java2D stack is a huge
task, and not feasible for small to midsized projects.  Considering
that there are already all the necessary pieces in OpenJDK, it would
be nice to make it possible to reuse these in new ports of AWT/Java2D
backends.  As described above, the general architecture does seem to
enable that, but has small problems in various places.  Also, there is
practically no documentation on how to implement an external rendering
pipeline.  This part of the project should improve this through the
following tasks.

- Extend the Java2D architecture to be reusable in new AWT/Java2D ports.

- Document the architecture and interfaces to be used, including
  an architectural overview, API documentation, and a tutorial.

- Create a proof-of-concept implementation that makes use of OpenJDKs
  rendering pipeline.

- Provide test cases for changed and new code.

3. Previous work
----------------

Mr. Kennke is the author of the Escher based toolkit in GNU Classpath,
and has helped with the GTK based toolkit in GNU Classpath.  Both of
these implement the public interfaces only and work with Classpath's
Swing.  The authors have created (very) prototypical ports of these to
OpenJDK [4] and create a very early prototype for a Java2D port based on
the internal Java2D interfaces [5]. This work should demonstrate that
the proposed project is feasible, and it will serve as a basis for
further development.

References:
-----------

[1] http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/2d-dev/2008-February/000142.html
[2] https://fbtoolkit.dev.java.net/
[3] http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/
[4] http://kennke.org/blog/2007/06/21/gtk-peers-on-openjdk/
[5] http://kennke.org/blog/2008/02/25/escher-on-openjdk-graphics/

-- 
pgp key: http://subkeys.pgp.net/

Proud GNU Classpath developer: http://www.classpath.org/
Read About us at: http://planet.classpath.org

Please, support open standards:
http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/