JDK 8u40 has been released and is available from the Java SE Downloads page. See the JDK 8u40 Update Release Notes for details.

Java Tutorial Updates

The Java Tutorial has been updated to include a new lesson in the Deployment trail that describes how to use the Java packaging tools to generate self-contained applications. Self-contained applications are Java applications that are bundled with the JRE that is needed to run. These applications are installed on a user's local drive and launched in the same way as native applications. See Deploying Self-Contained Applications for more information.

JDK Tools Enhancements

JDK 8u40 contains many tools enhancements. See Tools Enhancements in JDK 8 for details.

JavaFX Enhancements

Starting with the JDK 8u40 release, JavaFX controls are enhanced to support assistive technologies, meaning that JavaFX controls are now accessible. In addition, a public API is provided to allow developers to write their own accessible controls.

Accessibility support is provided on Windows and Mac OS X platforms and includes:

• Support for reading JavaFX controls by a screen reader
• JavaFX controls are traversable using the keyboard
• Support for a special high-contrast mode that makes controls more visible to users.

JDK 8u40 also includes new JavaFX UI controls; a spinner control, formatted-text support, and a standard set of alert dialogs.

Spinner Control

A Spinner is a single line text field that lets the user select a number or an object value from an ordered sequence. See javafx.scene.control.Spinner class for more information.

Formatted Text

A new TextFormatter class provides text formatting capablity for subclasses of TextInputControl (for example, TextField and TextArea). See javafx.scene.control.TextFormatter class for more information.

Dialogs

The Dialog class allows applications to create their own custom dialogs. In addition, an an Alert class is also provided, that extends Dialog, and provides support for a number of pre-built dialog types that can be easily shown to users to prompt for a response. See javafx.scene.control.Dialog, javafx.scene.control.Alert, javafx.scene.control.TextInputDialog, and javafx.scene.control.ChoiceDialog classes for more information.

Commercial Features

Application Class Data Sharing (AppCDS):

Application Class Data Sharing (AppCDS) extends CDS to enable you to place classes from the standard extensions directories and the application class path in the shared archive. This is a commercial feature and is no longer considered experimental (contrary to what is specified in the java tool documentation). See the -XX:+UseAppCDS option in the java launcher tool page.

Cooperative Memory Management

Starting with JDK 8u40, the notion of "memory pressure" has been added to the JDK. Memory pressure is a property that represents the total memory usage (RAM) on the system. The higher the memory pressure, the closer the system is to running out of memory.

As a reaction to increased memory pressure, the JDK will try to reduce its memory usage. This is mainly done by reducing the Java heap size. The actions the JDK will take to reduce memory usage may lead to reduced performance. This is an intentional choice.

The pressure level is provided by the application through a JMX MXBean using a scale from 0 (no pressure) to 10 (almost out of memory). To enable this feature, the jdk.management.cmm.SystemResourcePressureMXBean should be registered. The memory pressure is then set using the "MemoryPressure" attribute.

A new command line flag -XX:MemoryRestriction that takes one of the arguments 'none', 'low', 'medium', or 'high', is also available. This flag will set the initial pressure in the JDK and will work also in cases where the MXBean is not registered.

Cooperative Memory Management requires the G1 GC (-XX:+UseG1GC). This feature is not compatible with the flag -XX:+ExplicitGCInvokesConcurrent.

New Commercial Flags

Two new VM options are now available for commercial license holders:

• -XX:+ResourceManagement
• -XX:ResourceManagementSampleInterval=value (milliseconds)

For more information, see the java tool page.

New MSI Installer Documentation

The Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) Enterprise JRE Installer Guide is now available. The MSI Enterprise JRE Installer requires a commercial license for use in production. To learn more about commercial features and how to enable them, visit http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaseproducts.

Java Flight Recorder(JFR) Enhancements

It is now possible to enable Java Flight Recorder at runtime. For details, see the Java Flight Recorder Runtime Guide. Java Flight Recorder requires a commercial license for use in production. To learn more about commercial features and how to enable them, visit http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaseproducts.

Troubleshooting Guide Updates

The Troubleshooting Guide has been updated with new content for Troubleshooting using JMC, Troubleshooting Memory Leaks using JFR, and Troubleshooting Performance Issues using JFR.

JDK 8u31, 7u75 and 7u76 releases are now available. You can download these latest JDK releases from Java SE Downloads page.

For information on features and fixes included in these releases, see the relevant release notes:

• JDK 8u31 Release Notes
• JDK 7u76 Release Notes
• JDK 7u75 Release Notes

In addition, Java Embedded 8u33 and 7u75 a and JDK for ARM 8u33 are also released. For more information on these releases, see the release notes:

• Java Embedded 8u33 Release Notes
• Java Embedded 7u75 Release Notes
• JDK for ARM 8u33 Release Notes

The JDK documentation team is pleased to announce that The Java Tutorials Sixth Edition book is now available on Amazon in printed book and kindle formats.

This edition, based on Java SE 8, introduces the new features added to the platform, including lambda expressions, default methods, aggregate operations, and more. Expanded coverage includes a chapter on the Date-Time API and a new chapter on annotations, with sections on type annotations and pluggable type systems as well as repeating annotations. In addition, the updated sections “Security in Rich Internet Applications” and “Guidelines for Securing Rich Internet Applications” address key security topics.

If you plan to take one of the Java SE 8 certification exams, this book can help. A special appendix, “Preparing for Java Programming Language Certification,” details the items covered on the available exams. Check the Java Tutorials online for updates.

- Sowmya

Same content, new look, and some new URLs (apologies for that).

We wanted to make the URL stucture and page style of the Java EE 7 library more consistent with those of the other Java technologies. The contents of the Java EE 7 documentation haven't changed.

You can get to all the documentation for Java EE 7 and previous releases by going to http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/.

Until the search robots catch up to the new URLs, you can access the tutorials by removing doc/ from the URL if you get a 404 error. For example,

https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/tutorial/doc/jms-examples.htm

can be corrected to

https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/tutorial/jms-examples.htm

Oracle Java ME Embedded 8.1 is live on OTN. This release is an update of Oracle Java ME Embedded 8, including new platforms and features. Application development is supported through the Oracle Java ME SDK 8.1.

Visit the Java ME documentation portal to study the latest versions of the Release Notes and Getting Started Guides for the following supported platforms:

• Raspberry Pi Model B (ARM11/Linux)
• Freescale FRDM-K64F (Cortex-M4/mbed) Developer Preview
• Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)

The Java ME Developer's Guide is intended for developers who want to build Oracle Java ME Embedded software for embedded devices. The newly added Optimization Techniques chapter provides various solutions and tips to improve developer productivity and application performance. See the Java ME SDK Developer's Guide to learn how to develop applications with Oracle Java ME SDK 8 on Windows by using emulators. You can also learn how to develop, run, and debug your applications with NetBeans and Eclipse IDEs.

The complete set of Java ME Embedded and SDK documentation and the related API specifications can be found at docs.oracle.com/javame.

In case you missed it, the user guides for Java Mission Control and Java Flight Recorder have moved! As of JDK 8u20, links to the 5.4 and 5.3 versions of these docs can be found the JMC tab of the javacomponents page at: http://docs.oracle.com/javacomponents/jmc.htm.

Redirects from the old locations are in place, but please update your bookmarks accordingly!

The Oracle Java ME documentation team has put together a short survey (7 questions) to help us understand better what type of Java ME documentation you are looking for and how we can improve it:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/javame-docs

If you're interested in the Java Embedded technologies and eager to start developing applications for various boards, please, do us a great favor by quickly filling in the survey!

JDK 8u25, 7u71 and 7u72 releases are now available. You can download these latest JDK releases from Java SE Downloads page.

For information on features and fixes included in these releases, see JDK 8u25 release notes, JDK 7u71 release notes, and JDK 7u72 release notes.

The Java SE documentation team is conducting a brief survey at the following URL:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/java-se-documentation-survey-2014

Answering it will provide us with key insights into the kinds of developer documentation that you (our readers) are looking for. Thank you in advance. We value your input very much!

Wednesday at JavaOne, Joe Darcy and Alex Buckley of Oracle presented Enhanced Metadata in Java SE 8. This session described new features related to annotations and explained how to use annotations with custom type checkers to improve code quality.

For more information on this topic, see the Annotations lesson in the Java Tutorials.

Today at JavaOne, Danno Ferrin of Oracle presents the session Packaging and Deploying Java Apps in Java 8u20. This session provides information about the new features for the Java Packager and shows you how to integrate them into your build chain.

For more information on this topic, see The Java Packager Tool and Packaging Basics in the Java Platform, Standard Edition Deployment Guide.

Today at JavaOne, Andrey Petushkov (Consulting Member of the Technical Staff, Oracle) hosts the session Best Practices for Efficient Java ME Programming.

You will learn how to use various language and VM features to create memory effective applications. Numerous examples demonstrate the real use cases for the new Java ME 8 platform features.

Today, Sergey Troshin, a staff engineer at Oracle, hosts the session Java ME Platform Fueled by New Tooling Architecture.

This presentation highlights the new tooling architecture that turns a resource-constrained Java ME Embedded system into a developer-friendly and manageable platform. You will learn about various tools, services, and extensions that can be provided atop the architecture.

Today, Andrey Petushkov (Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Oracle) and Bogdan Marinescu Marinescu (Software engineer, ARM) are hosting the session Java and mbed Make Embedded Real. In this session, you learn about the benefits and key features of the platform and how it can be used in the Internet of Things infrastructure. A working application in this session demonstrates how to build an end-to-end solution with the Java ME Embedded platform.

For more information, see the Java ME Embedded documentation portal.

Today, Marcus Hirt (Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Oracle) and Michael Avrahamov (Sr. Director of Software Development, Oracle) hosted the session Using Oracle Java Flight Recorder. Java Flight Recorder (JFR) is a tool for collecting diagnostic and profiling data about a running Java application. It is a feature of Oracle Java SE Advanced and Oracle Java SE Suite. The session showed how JFR works, different ways to control JFR, and examples of how to analyze recordings in different ways.

For more information, see Java SE Java Flight Recorder Runtime Guide.