The JDK Client Desktop : 2026 and Still Swinging
summary
Swing stays in the JDK and evolves: JDK 26 removes the applet API (JEP 504) and the recommended replacement is bundling with JPackage + JLink to produce native installers. Active work includes a new JDatePicker returning java.time.LocalDate (popup and embedded JCalendarPane), a Wakefield project to run AWT natively on Wayland with a planned Vulkan pipeline, Robot rework for Wayland, ~1,500 JNI calls still present, and thousands of CI-driven UI tests.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction and overview
- 1:42Journey of Java desktop
- 5:11Current state of the stack
- 8:33Removing the applet API
- 14:59Native deployment options
- 22:18The JDatePicker component
- 32:05Project Wakefield and Wayland
- 38:50Modernization and FFM
- 43:47Testing and priorities
- 47:34Future work and Q&A
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