Have you tried any of the community builds? Let us know what you think in the comments. There are occasional problems with non-fatal X11-related exceptions clogging up standard out – due to some of the Mac’s uniqueness, but on the whole, it’s not bad at all for a pre-release product. For now, we’re pretty happy running the community-provided OpenJDK builds. Here at, we think that we could be looking at roughly a 3 month gap between Java 7 GA and a Mac release – so maybe October 2011 if all goes well. Of course, the OpenJDK code (which Oracle regard as the reference implementation) will be available (and GPL) for anyone who wants to build their own binary. This applies to the Oracle-supplied binary builds. The official line from Oracle is that JDK 7 will GA with Windows, Linux and Solaris as first-class supported operating systems, and the Mac will release as soon as possible after, with the hope that at some point in the future updates for the Mac version will be released at the same time as other OSes. Relevant bug fixes should be able to go both ways between the two related ports, where possible.Īll of this is likely to take time, however. Buried at the bottom of the page is a link to a page where the open bugs for the Mac port are being publicly tracked (as they’re ported across from Apple’s internal system).ĭevelopment is focused around JDK 7 – the basic idea is to take a fork of the community-maintained BSD port, and add Apple’s code to it, to produce a Mac-specific port. Over the last few days, there have been some developments – for example this wiki page, detailing the progress of the Mac port, has appeared. I, for one, can’t wait to see what Nimbus look-and-feel will look like under native Aqua.
It’s also good news for Mac users – as it means that, for example, the native Aqua look-and-feel will continue to be supported – so Java desktop apps on Mac will look lovely.
This is good news for Java developers who want to develop on Mac.
When you open a Netbeans project or create a new one, you should notice the 1.7 library already loaded.Hopefully, by now, everyone knows that Apple joined the OpenJDK project last year. You should see a drop down that lists JDK 6. If you are using NetBeans and started a project in 1.6 and continuing it in 1.7, you may need to change the Source/Binary Format located under Sources in the Project Properties. You should see the java preferences dialog at this point which should now list Java SE 7 as an option. Now drag the modified 1.7.0.jdk package into System / Library / Java / JavaVirtualMachines directory and double click to open it.
A JDK 1.7 port could be even integrated into the Mac OS X Lion. The business model would be very similar to Linux-distributions.
Spending 20-50 for a nice, easy to install JDK 7 port is a compelling idea (with several hundred thousands potential customers). When you download the Java Development Kit (JDK), the associated Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed at the. You do not need to replace any files or folders that already exist. Mac OS X users are spending money for useful tools, editors and productivity extensions.
Now open the JDK 7 Update 21 Folder-1 / Contents directory and drag everything into the package as well. There is a file called ist and 2 folders called Home and MacOS. Navigate to JDK 7 Update 21 Folder / Contents Directory. You'll see 2 folders: JDK 7 Update 21 Folder and JDK 7 Update 21 Folder-1.
Open the directory where you extracted the installer contents to on the desktop. Now delete the contents within the 1.7.0.jdk package. Copy this file to the desktop and rename it to 1.7.0.jdk. You'll probably see 1.6.0.jdk package already listed. Once you load the package, select all the contents and drag it into a folder on the desktop.Īt this point, you'll want to navigate to the JavaVirtualMachines directory located at / System / Lbrary / Java / JavaVirtualMachines. You have to first click on Open Package within Pacifist and then load the JDK 7 Update 21 / JDK 7 Update 21.pkg package. I extracted the contents of the installer using a program called Pacifist which I downloaded from to a folder I created on the desktop. A volume appeared on my desktop called JDK 7 Update 21.
Install Java JDK7 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.8ĭownload the latest JDK 7 from the Oracle web site. The JavaFX SDK and Runtime are also installed and integrated into the standard JDK directory structure. According the the Oracle website, you would probably not be able to install Java 7 (Java1.7) on Mac OS X Snow Leopard.Īs mentioned above, the only probable way would be a "work around" that could enable it. When you download the Java Development Kit (JDK), the associated Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed at the same time.