Per Holmberg's Java Software FAQ

This page contains FAQ about Per Holmberg's Java Software. See also Java FAQ.

Who is behind this website?

My name is Per Holmberg and this is the website where I publish my Java software. The software programs here are, if not otherwise stated, entirely written by me. Most software was written during my study time (-2005).

I have no ulterior motives. The programs are provided without any spyware, adware or other ugly stuff. I don't make any money when you simply visit this website, downloading or using my programs.

Why are some programs here freeware, other open source?

When this website was new, all programs were freeware. Since then, open source have grown to be very popular. Of course I want to be "trendy", and therefore I have released some of my work under the GPL. It is likely that more of my programs will be open source in the future. However, there is no plan to "batch convert" all software here to GPL; some code I might want to use in my professional career as a software developer, which leeds us to two problems; (1) many corporations are not very keen on GPL and (2) I don't understand law enough to know to which extent my GPL:ed code and closed code can be mixed.

What do you mean with "freeware"?

This is the definition of "freeware" on Per Holmberg's Java Software website:

You may:

Use the software on your computer.
Make copies of the software.
Distribute the software in its originally form, intact without modifications.

You must not:

Sell or rent the software for a fee, other than media costs in the distribution.
Use the software or part of the software in another product.

Because the software is licensed free of charge, the software is provided "as-is", without any expressed or implied warranty. In no event will the software author be liable to you for damages.

Can you release your source under a less restrictive licence?

For this website, I have no plans to release it under a less restrictive licence than GPL. It doesn't mean you can't get rights to use it in other ways, contact me if interested.

Can you code me [insert feature here]?

For non-trivial things generally no, beacuse of limited time, but you can always ask :-)

How can I help?

You can help in various ways. In no particular order:

Report bugs you find in the programs.
Report errors you find on this website (including spelling and grammar).
Translate a program to another language. Several programs are prepared for localization, which means that no programming experience is needed for the translation process.
"Spread the word" of the quality of Per Holmberg software ;-)

How do I change the Swing look-and-feel for your Java applications?

You change the look-and-feel by making a small change in the "Java registry". Use my application PrefsEdit to do these changes. When you have started PrefsEdit, the first thing you need to do is to find the node where the preferences for the application to change look-and-feel for has its preferences stored. For AnyOSZip for example, it is UserRoot/net/perholmberg/anyoszip.

Now, lets make a look-and-feel change! There are three ways:

Do you want the look-and-feel emulate the operating system you are running? Create a key LAFSystem and set the the value to true if you want the look-and-feel of you operating system, or false if you think the Java look-and-feel works better for you.
There are a small amount of look-and-feels preinstalled with your Java installation. With the key LAFIndex you can load a look-and-feel by specifying an index in this list of installed look-and-feels as key value, 0 (zero) is the first index. With Sun Java 1.4, the list is: 0 is Metal (Java look-and-feel), 1 is CDE/Motif and 2 is Windows.
You can download a look-and-feel from Internet and applying it by creating a key with the name LAFClass. The value should be a classname, you should find which classname in the documentation for the look-and-feel you want to use. For example, for if you want to use the plastic look-and-feel in the JGoodies looks package, you should specify com.jgoodies.plaf.plastic.PlasticLookAndFeel as value. Note that must include the look-and-feel executable code in classpath.

The LAFLoader component is called at application startup, so you need to restart your target application to make the changes take effect.

The feature above is supported by applications that use my LAFLoader component. Current applications with LAFLoader component are AnyOSZip, PrefsEdit, AnyOSSplits and Glosor 2000.