Bug 131233

I`d like to get the approval and some comments from core team.
And certainly it is not a defect..

Dafe, could you comment on the -J-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true in command line arguments? 

Standa knows more about it, ccing him.

-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true wasn't added because of bugs in JDK 1.5. i added that flag (after agreement with our QA) to
enable transparency effects provided by JNA library. see issues #126848 and #128433

Okay, so three questions:

1) Where does Netbeans use Windows transparency? I haven't seen this anywhere.
2) Does Windows transparency outweigh the performance benefits of the pipeline?
3) What about using the following mechanism? It looks like it will become the standard moving forward and it's available
in JDK6: http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2008/03/18/translucent-and-shaped-swing-windows.html

1) try dragging any editor window or projects/navigator/... view
2) our measurements showed only negligible performance hit
3) nice, but it's not stable api yet and it's available in jdk 1.6 update N only

besides, whoever doesn't like ddraw turned off can simply remove that switch from their config files...

sorry guys, I am not very experienced in netbeans core, but can we do the following in the core itself :
if(System.getProperty("java.version").startsWith("1.5") && System.getProperty("sun.java2d.noddraw")!=null) {
    System.setProperty("sun.java2d.noddraw","true");
}

Will it have any effect?

> sorry guys, I am not very experienced in netbeans core, but can we do the following in the core itself :
> if(System.getProperty("java.version").startsWith("1.5") && System.getProperty("sun.java2d.noddraw")!=null) {
>    System.setProperty("sun.java2d.noddraw","true");
> }
> 
> Will it have any effect?

that's too late. if the switch isn't specified at command line then there are some repaint issues after setting it at
runtime

Sorry, can it be worked out inside the netbeans executable somehow ?
IMO installer should not switch flags during installation since actual execution of IDE might be under different JDK.

I have just found out the this setting causes problem with text antialiasing. I am using Scenario graphics library to
render graphic content in NetBeans and when JDK 1.6 u10 (and newer) is used it produces ugly black dots around the text
labels (see the attached screenshot). The problem is probably not in NetBeans itself, but moving this setting into the
NetBeans launcher (where current JDK version is already known) would solve my problem and also improve performance a
bit. In case you have access to our JIRA, here is the link to our issue. Thanks

Created attachment 74245 [details]
Screenshot of incorrectly antialised text in NetBeans

Pavel,
could you please also attach screenshot without this setting?

Thanks,
Dmitry

Here is the JIRA link I have mentioned in my previous comment: http://openjfx.java.sun.com/jira/browse/RT-2336

Created attachment 74249 [details]
Correctly antialised text without the command line argument

Your last attachment is in text/plain instead of image/png. It won't display properly.

I am sorry, my mistake. Just save it and open it locally. It will work.

There's another reason this parameter should be omitted. NetBeans performance in a Windows Remote Desktop session is *horrible* when sun.java2d.noddraw is set to true. When I run with a command line of -J-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=false, performance becomes reasonable again.

I would argue that due to the impact on performance, this should be reclassified as a defect.

Thanks!

On a side-note, I've long argued that the current tab/window dragging mechanism in Netbeans is terrible. The FireFox mechanism for moving tabs (with a small arrow to indicate the drop location) looks much better and runs much faster over Remote Desktop.

Please review the usability of tab dragging and dump the use of transparent windows if possible. Transparency normally looks great, but in this case it just looks out of place.

(In reply to comment #18)
> On a side-note, I've long argued that the current tab/window dragging mechanism
> in Netbeans is terrible. The FireFox mechanism for moving tabs (with a small
> arrow to indicate the drop location) looks much better and runs much faster
> over Remote Desktop.
> 
> Please review the usability of tab dragging and dump the use of transparent
> windows if possible. Transparency normally looks great, but in this case it
> just looks out of place.

my firefox (3.6.13 on win 7) does show a semi-transparent preview of the window being dragged - just like in netbeans:)

you can turn the transparency off in netbeans options.

Assigned to new owner.

Can one of the committers confirm whether this issue fixed?