Jrex: Gecko rendering for Java apps
The HTML rendering component in Java Swing is so dated it’s become a joke. HTML 3.2 compatible with a little bit of support for CSS thrown in - it is not capable of displaying modern websites. Recently, the Flying Saucer project has been delivering a compontent OSS XHTML renderer, which has proved very successful. However, it’s still behind the big names, like Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.
Jrex does things differently. As useful a Java implemented renderer is, Jrex allows you to embed the Gecko rendering engine, which is used in Mozilla-based products, directly in to your Java app. The Gecko engine has the advantage of being a large project with a lot of man-hours already dedicated to it. It’s up-to-date, robust and pretty speedy. So, I’m very glad that this is available.