Fullscreen feature for Java Apps on OSX Lion

Question

How can I (natively) implement the fullscreen feature of OSX Lion in a Java application?

The current answers given incorporate a good method for achieving a sort-of-fullscreen feature. I've read that Eclipse may be able to use the "native" fullscreen feature of Lion. That's what I'm asking about.

Solution 1

I found this on Apple's Java release notes:

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Fullscreen Support

Java applications on Lion can now opt into the Fullscreen window feature per-window. Developers can use the com.apple.eawt.FullScreenUtilities class to mark windows as able to be full screened, and the com.apple.eawt.Application.requestToggleFullScreen(Window) method to programmatically request the window enter and exit full screen mode. This API does nothing on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

More explicitly, try calling this early on from the constructor of your JFrames...

/**
 * @param window
 */
@SuppressWarnings({"unchecked", "rawtypes"})
public static void enableOSXFullscreen(Window window) {
    Preconditions.checkNotNull(window);
    try {
        Class util = Class.forName("com.apple.eawt.FullScreenUtilities");
        Class params[] = new Class[]{Window.class, Boolean.TYPE};
        Method method = util.getMethod("setWindowCanFullScreen", params);
        method.invoke(util, window, true);
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e1) {
    } catch (Exception e) {
        log.log(Level.WARNING, "OS X Fullscreen FAIL", e);
    }
}

Solution 2

I don't know about natively, but Java does support fullscreen applications without needing native code:

http://saipullabhotla.blogspot.com/2012/05/enabling-full-screen-mode-for-java.html

The question is has Apple implemented that with Lion in their JDK.

Solution 3

For those of you who do not mind a quick and dirty solution:

Call getRootPane().putClientProperty("apple.awt.fullscreenable", Boolean.valueOf(true)) from the Frame constructor. This is what setWindocCanFullScreen does.

Solution 4

What you are trying to do can be done through the com.apple.eawt library. Additionally in order to avoid writing code through reflection if you also deploy your application on other OSes like Windows, Linux etc. you should use and distribute embeded within your application the AppleJavaExtensions.jar from Apple.

This is the method to make a frame expandable in full screen:

FullScreenUtilities.setWindowCanFullScreen(window,true);

And this is the method to toggle full screen:

Application.getApplication().requestToggleFullScreen(window);

where the parameter window is the JFrame of your application that you are trying to make full screen capable.

To see an example application have a look at RationalPlan Project.

View more solutions

Comments

[gamma]

Your link is the same as the one above. Your native-recommendation makes sense, but we already have a full blown and mature Java implementation of the product. Apple usually had special OSX API's for Java - I hoped Oracle had something similar for the Lion version already.

[nes1983]

I know the link is the same, I'm trying to give a complete answer. I attribute it to chubbard. Apple did provide that, it was called JavaBridge. The link is above.

[Eduardo Costa]

I can add multi platform applications like NetBeans. When running on Mac, the menu is integrated to OSX menu (i.e. no "menu bar" inside the window). They have a "fullscreen" feature, but it's not like Lion's FS. I would love to create a patch and submit it to NB team.

[Eduardo Costa]

This FS is actually more like the "exclusive gaming FS", where you can select resolution, refresh rate, etc.

[mostruash]

Is there a way to check if the application is currently in fullscreen mode or not? Otherwise, toggling fullscreen is utterly useless.

[Arthur Edelstein]

@mostruash: Yes, you can attach a listener to a window to see if it has entered or exited full screen mode. See the static methods in com.apple.eawt.FullScreenUtilities and the definition of com.apple.eawt.FullScreenListener.

[gamma]

You did see, that the accepted solution is quite old and that is more powerful due to reflections?

[Tiberiu]

My answer is a slightly complementary solution for other users like me that did not wanted to bother with reflection.