NetBeans relies on the Swing Application Framework for a standard project type (Java Desktop Application), and encourages its use by users. However, the project is moribund, Sun has dropped all development on it, and the associated JSR (JSR296) has been cut from the Java 7 plans. Please contact the JSR296 spec lead for confirmation of this, though an update to http://appframework.dev.java.net/ should be pending soon.

(The same issue applies to JSR295, Beans Binding, which NetBeans also relies on)

Because of largely non-responsive developers on the SAF lists and lack of progress or updates, the Swing Application Framework now has several forks attempting to maintain and enhance it.

NetBeans may want to adopt one of the more conservative forks so that users of SAF-based projects in NetBeans aren't left in the lurch with an unmaintained framework with known bugs and sketchy documentation.

The Better Swing Application Framework project (http://kenai.com/projects/bsaf) is trying to maintain a fully backward compatible fork with bug and documentation fixes, as well as moving on with work to enhance the framework in a separate branch. It might serve users better than keeping on shipping the current framework.

There's also http://github.com/hamnis/SAFF, but it appears to have gone nowhere since creation.

Finally, there's the more ambitious but incompatible GUTS-GUI (http://kenai.com/projects/guts).

I suggest the adoption of BSAF for 6.8 to replace the existing SAF framework.