Linux - Splash screen for Java application

On Windows I use Exe4J to start my Java Application. This has the following advantages:

• Splashscreen which shows before Java starts
• Possibility to update a Label on the splash screen during the startup, until the application is folly loaded ("Initializing Flux compensator","Reordering high nibbles", etc.)

Now I want to im开发者_开发百科plement this on Linux. I start my App with a Shell script, but would love an easy way to show some kind of splash GUI with a label on it, which I can update from my shell script during startup.

Is there an easy way to fire up a minimal GUI from a shell script, and to update the label in it from the shell script, without having to compile a separate executable for it for linux (and maybe even Mac OS X)?

PS: I don't want to use the Java build in splash screen because of the Label which has to be updated dynamically.

The standard Java 1.6+ solution for screen splash does support custom drawing on the splash Screensplash Tutorial.

Here is an example for a splash controller, which has a main method -- run it with a splash parameter to see the result.

package somepackage;
import java.awt.AlphaComposite;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.FontMetrics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.SplashScreen;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.geom.Rectangle2D;

public class SplashController implements ActionListener {
    private static final int X = 20, W = 300;
    private static final int TEXT_H = 10, BAR_H = 10;

    private int textY, barY;
    private int barPos = 0;

    private final SplashScreen splash;
    private Graphics2D graph;

    public SplashController(final int msgXOffset, final int msgYOffset) {
    splash = SplashScreen.getSplashScreen();
    if (splash == null) {
         System.out.println("Error: no splash image specified on the command line");
         return;
    }

   // compute base positions for text and progress bar
   final Dimension splashSize = splash.getSize();
   textY = splashSize.height - msgYOffset;
   barY = splashSize.height - msgYOffset;

   graph = splash.createGraphics();
   //timer.start();
}

public SplashController() {
    this(30, 30);
}

@Override
public void actionPerformed(final ActionEvent e) {
    drawSplashProgress(msg);
}

public void closeSplash() {
    if (splash != null) {
        splash.close();
    }
}

private String msg;

public void drawSplashProgress(final String msg) {
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            SplashController.this.msg = msg;
            graph.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION,                              RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR);
            graph.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
            graph.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
            graph.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY);

            // clear what we don't need from previous state
            graph.setComposite(AlphaComposite.Clear);

            final FontMetrics fm = graph.getFontMetrics();
            final Rectangle2D textsize = fm.getStringBounds(msg, graph);

            graph.fillRect(X, textY - 1, W, (int) textsize.getHeight() + 5);
            if (barPos == 0) {
                graph.fillRect(X - 3, barY, W + 10, BAR_H);
            }

            // draw new state
            graph.setPaintMode();

            // draw message
            graph.setColor(Color.BLACK);
            graph.drawString(msg, X, textY + TEXT_H);
            try {
                splash.update();
            } catch (final IllegalStateException e) {
               // can be ignored
            }
        }
     });
}

public static void main(final String args[]) throws Exception {
    final SplashController test = new SplashController();
    for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++) {
       test.drawSplashProgress("Progress step number " + i);
       Thread.sleep(250);
    }
    test.closeSplash();
}  
}

The Eclipse launcher supports this functionality on all platforms, but moving to SWT may be going too far? There are details here.

You could use Python (or some other scripting language that exposes GUI functionality) from your script.

http://docs.python.org/faq/gui.html