However, JBuilder 5 contains Mac support. It has not been released for sale yet, probably because Apple's JDK 1.3 has not been released from Beta testing. The online copies of the JBuilder 5 manuals contain numerous references to Mac support. JBuilder 5 is supported on OS X but you must download a new JVM for it.
See also:

  http://www.borland.com/jbuilder/mac/

Installation

Answers in this category:
Apple's JDK has hwaccel support.

Answers in this category:
I want to install JBuilder 4 on OS X but there is no OS X Installer. What do I do?
JBuilder 5 Preview Release Notes
How do I install JBuilder 8 and 9 from a CD?

I just copied the jbuilder directory from my sun (I figure it may work with a win or linux one too).

Next, follow these steps :

1) edit jbuilder/bin/jdk.config accordingly,

  #----jdk.config----#
  # Définir le chemin pour le JDK
  javapath /usr/bin/java
  # Ajouter les tools.jar
  addpath /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3/Classes/classes.jar
  vmparam -Xverify:none

The addpath is not important.

2) exec jbuilder from a terminal

3) enter your license

4) In the menu Tools:Configure JDK add the following paths :

  /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3/Classes/classes.jar
  /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3/Classes/i18n.jar
  /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3/Classes/ui.jar

I just succeed in a full project recompile !

2001-Mar-29 2:02pm gyles19@visi.com

Actually, I believe you can use any of the distributions. Here is what I did. Note that I was using Foundation only.

Copied the lib folder from my Win2K machine to my Mac OS X machine (just a lowly iMac rev. A). Looking at the quoted text below, you may get better results starting with a *NIX installer.

Fired up MRJAppBuilder from the developer tools CD.

Set the Main classname to com.borland.jbuilder.JBuilder

Switched to the Java Properties tab and make the following changes:

  verify -> none
  gc.min -> 8M
  gc.max -> 128M

Switched to the Merge Files tab and added all the JAR files.

Choose a name and location for my app file (in this case /Applications/JBuilder.app) and created the application.

Voila! A double-clickable icon in the Finder to load JBuilder. Takes about 15MB of space.

However, your work is not done yet. I don't know if the Solaris/Linux installers do some of this for you, but I got a very "raw" JBuilder at this point. Next thing I needed to do was configure the JDK in Tools....Configure JDKs. On the Class tab I added classes.jar, i18n.jar, and ui.jar. I happened to use /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3/Classes as the folder.

Once I did this, I was able to compile a HelloWorld project.

Next thing I noticed is that the Design tab doesn't have any of the beans added so you will need to add them yourself. There may be a little bug where you can't actually install any beans until you have added a tab as a separate action. In either case, adding them is easy enough and most of the ones in Foundation are disabled anyway. ;)

JBuilder definately looks better in Metal than in Aqua at the moment, but the anti-aliased source code looks nice. :)

I'm also concerning about the socket 8888 command in the jbuilder.config file, but things seems to be running at the moment.
2001-Apr-03 2:32pm gyles19@visi.com

The following release notes should have been included in the mail sent when you registered JBuilder for Mac OS X. It seems that this was not the case for everyone, so I've included them here for reference.

- Blake Stone

  Chief Scientist
  Borland

IMPORTANT NOTE: JBuilder 5 requires a newer version of the Java runtime than Apple includes in the current release of Mac OS X. JBuilder will detect MRJ 3.0 and display a message indicating that you must upgrade using Software Update. The newer Java runtime is not yet available via Software Update. Apple has provided the following instructions for downloading a beta version of the updated Java runtime:

   'To get the Java Seed developers should login to ADC (Apple
   Developer Connection) or join the ADC at http://connect.apple.com/.
   After you have logged into the ADC Member site, click the Download
   Software link, and then click the Java link to view a list of the
   Java software seeds. Once you have decided which software seed to
   download, press the Download Button on the right hand side of the
   seed description.'

Once the update has been installed, please update JBuilder's knowledge of the Java SDK using the following steps:

   1) Select the Tools | Configure JDKs... menu item
   2) Click the "Change..." button beside the JDK home path
   3) Make no changes on the path selection dialog, just press OK to
      rescan the existing location
   4) Press OK to close the Configure JDKs dialog

Disabling Aqua Look and Feel

Some problems appear only when using the Aqua look and feel (eg: the invisible vertical scroll bar thumb in database tables.) Before reporting a problem to the newsgroup please switch JBuilder's look and feel to Metal using the "Tools | IDE Options..." dialog's Browser tab to determine whether the problem is Aqua-specific.

Hardware Acceleration

JBuilder runs significantly faster when using hardware graphics acceleration, which is turned off by default in Apple's Java runtime preview. These steps will enable hardware acceleration when using JBuilder:

  1) Create a new file using TextEdit
  2) Select the "Format | Make Plain Text" menu item
  3) Add the text "vmparam -Dcom.apple.hwaccel=true", omitting the quotes
  4) Save the file in /Applications/JBuilder5/OpenTools as
  "HardwareGraphics.config"
  5) Select "Don't append" when TextEdit asks to add a .txt extension
  6) Restart JBuilder

Hardware acceleration is dependant on having enough video RAM to cache images. PowerBook / iBook users are under tighter constraints in this respect and should switch to "thousands" of colors to take full advantage of hardware acceleration.

If hardware acceleration causes unacceptable problems on your system it may be disabled by deleting the "HardwareGraphics.config" file and restarting JBuilder.

Enabling Java Sharing

Apple's Java memory sharing technology is disabled by JBuilder non-standard boot class path. Running and debugging Java applications with 128MB of memory may be faster if memory sharing is re-enabled by following these steps:

  1) Create a new file using TextEdit
  2) Select the "Format | Make Plain Text" menu item
  3) Add the text "addskippath ../lawt.jar", omitting the quotes
  4) Save the file in /Applications/JBuilder5/OpenTools as "EnableSharing.config"
  5) Select "Don't append" when TextEdit asks to add a .txt extension
  6) Restart JBuilder

This change will make using it difficult or impossible to use the GUI designer with AWT components. This functionality can be re-enabled by deleting the "EnableSharing.config" file and restarting JBuilder.
2001-Jun-15 8:25am gyles19@visi.com

 It also seems to work for versions 8 and 9.  

 (JBuilder version 6 and 7 have installers for Mac OS X, so you should use those.)

 Steps:

 1. insert the JBuilder CD

 2. in a terminal window, change directories/folders  to the following directory: 

       /Volumes/<name of jbuilder 9 cd>/Solaris

   you can also use the Linux distribution.

 3. run the following command, assuming you have the Enterprise version:

      sh ./ent_install.bin LAX_VM /usr/bin/java 

 If you have the Personal version, that would be 

      sh ./per_install.bin LAX_VM /usr/bin/java 

 Notes: 

 1. The installer hung when I tried to choose a different
 directory to install in rather than the default. 
 
 2. After starting the installer again and using the default 
 installation location the installer actually put the installation in 

    /Developer/Applications/JBuilder9

 This is the preferred location for a JBuilder installation, so 
 you should just go with the preferred location.  That is, 
 don't touch that "Choose" button!

 Once you are done installing, you have two choices for 
 launching JBuilder 8 or 9.  

 1. You could modify the app bundle, JBuilder.app, inside 
 the /Developer/Applications/JBuilder<8 or 9>
 folder.  Because this is a lengthy and potentially complicated 
 procedure, it is recommended that you forego this approach, 
 and adopt the next one.
 
 2. Use the shell script which has been published in the 
 "borland.public.jbuilder.macintosh" newsgroup.  For 
 discussions related to the script, please search
 the archives at http://www.tamaracka.com using the 
 following keywords: 

  ^jbuilder ^macintosh shell script 

 The following is a shell script for JBuilder 8.
 By saving it to a file named JBuilder8.command in 
 your Home folder, you can double-click on it to 
 launch.  You can also drag it to the Dock.  

 Modify the script for your version of JBuilder and
 installation paths.  
 
 *** begin snip after this line ***
 #!/bin/sh
 
 # Credits:
 # Original author -- Dave Yost
 # Modifications -- Paul Furbacher
 # Use at your own risk; make modifications according to 
 # your installation.
 
 # Optional arguments in the last line of this script:
 #
 # -info  prints out info equivalent to that found in the About
 #        box > Info tab.
 #
 # -verbose  prints out a verbose record of the OpenTool initializatin
 #        and more
 #
 # -license  starts the License Manager
 #
 
 echo "Environment"
 
 /usr/bin/env
 
 echo ""
 
 if [ $# -eq 0 ]
   then args="-info"
   else args=$@
 fi
 
 echo $args
 
 JBUILDER_HOME=/Developer/Applications/JBuilder8
 jdk=1.4.1
 
 useGrowBox=true
 
 cd $JBUILDER_HOME/JBuilder.framework/bin
 
 #jars=`find ../patch ../lib ../lib/ext -name \*.jar | tr '\012' : `
 jars=`find ../lib -name \*.jar | tr '\012' : `
 
 exec 
 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/$jdk/Commands/java \
  -Xdock:name="JBuilder 8":icon=$JBUILDER_HOME/JBuilder.app/Contents/Resources/JBuilder.icns \
  -Xmaxf0.2 \
  -Xminf0.2 \
  -Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true \
  -Dapple.awt.showGrowBox=$useGrowBox \
  -Xverify:none \
  -Xbootclasspath/p:../lib/lawt.jar:../lib/lawt.jar:../lib/TabbedPaneFix.jar:../lib/SequencedEventFix.jar:../lib/JarManifestFix.jar:/System/Library/Java/Extensions/MRJToolkit.jar   \
  -Xms32m \
  -Xmx256m \
  -cp ${jars}:/System/Library/Java \
  com.borland.jbuilder.JBuilder $args 
  
 *** end snip above this line ***
 
 Notes on creating, editing and saving the shell
 script: 
 
 1. save file with Unix line endings, generic text file, etc.
 
 2. chmod +x filename_goes_here
 
    - Do step 2 in a Terminal window.
 
 3. save the file with a .command and it will be double-clickable
 _if_ it was not saved so that the editor puts its creator and
 filetype signatures on the file.  For example, in BBEdit, make
 sure it is saved as a "generic text file" in the "Options" 
 dialog off the "Save as" dialog.
 
 4. Note the -Xbootclasspath line may have been wrapped by 
 your newsreader.  The lengthy "exec ..." command may be 
 broken across many lines, but each line must end with a 
 line continuation character (i.e., "\").
 
 5. Some have suggested that JEdit may be a good editor 
 to have around for this and quick editing of Java files.
 It can save with Unix line endings.
 
 

I thought that the following explanation offered by an Apple Java engineer, Gerard Ziemski, might be of general interest to this newsgroup. The indented text is a full quote of his message to the Java-Dev list.

        Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 15:30:30 -0800
        Subject: hwaccel notes

        hi guys,
        
        Here are few notes I wrote in response to your questions about hwaccel.
        
        
        Q: What does com.apple.hwaccel do?
        
        A: You can use it to turn hwaccel off for all machines, by
        setting it to false. If the option is set to true, which is the
        default, you still have to explicitly define which
        configurations you want to support, see com.apple.hwaccellist.
        Note: there is currently no mechanism that would let you turn
        hwaccel on for all configurations.
        
        
        Q: Why did we decide to use com.apple.hwaccellist?
        
        A: The hwaccel mechanism is implemented on top of OpenGL. There
        are OpenGL bugs that are specific to only certain
        configurations. We needed a mechanism that would let us control,
        on per video graphics card, whether to turn hwaccel on or off.
        
        If you look in ~JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3.1/Home/lib you
        will notice a glconfigurationlist.properties file. In there, we
        list all the configurations for which we think hwaccel can be
        turned on. Right now the list doesn't contain any active
        configurations, the file actually has some of them listed, but
        they all are commented out. However, in the future, when we
        decide to turn hwaccel on by default, this will be the list
        containing the "blessed" configurations. You, as the developer,
        will be responsible for deciding if you want to support more
        configuration than listed by us in that file.
        
        The final list of supported configuations is the union of those
        listed in glconfigurationlist.properties file and those listed
        by you using the com.apple.hwaccellist property. Note: there is
        currently no mechanism that would let you turn hwaccel off for
        any of those configurations that are listed in
        glconfigurationlist.properties.
        
        
        Q: What is hwaccel_info_tool?
        
        A: hwaccel_info_tool is a small command line tool that you can
        use to find out the name of your configuration for the purposes
        of adding it to the hwaccellist.
        
        
        Q: Which Macs support hwaccel?
        
        A: The very first requirement is that the OpenGL must be
        supported. Second, at this point of time it is safe to say that
        all the macs with at least 16Meg of vram are supported. The macs
        with only 8Meg of vram, will work fine in thousands of colors
        mode. If you turn on millions of colors, you will quickly run
        out of vram and depending on the size of a window, we will have
        to turn it off if the size becomes too big.
        
        You should be free to experiment with hwaccel and any new video
        graphics cards. In our code we have extensive error checking
        mechanism, which employed with some heuristic in our code,
        determines when we can use hwaccel. If for some reason we
        determine that we can't use hwaccel, we will just turn it off on
        the fly.
        
        
        Q: How do I tell whether hwaccel is on or off?
        
        A: The easiest way to tell whether hwaccel is on or off is by
        noticing if the grow box of the window is drawn or not. If the
        hwaccel is off the grwbox will be visible. If the hwaccel is on
        the growbox will not be visible. A good example of when bugs
        become a feature ;-)
        
        
        Someone suggested that we come up with a Java section in "System
        Preferences" for controlling Java apps that would include such
        things as hwaccel, swing options, hotspot memory heap size etc.
        I personally think this is a terrific idea, which, in fact we
        thought of doing some time ago. Please remember that you can
        file bugs if you want to see new features or some aspects of our
        implementation mechanism changed.
        
        Please play around with hwaccel and file any bugs you will run into.
        
        cheers