Where to Find ThinWire
ThinWire is available free for all use under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and is available for download at http://www.thinwire.com. Just click the Download link at the top of the page.
While you're there, check out some of the other resources provided at thinwire.com such as online demo applications, community-contributed documentation and frequently asked questions, the public issue tracker, community forums, and the developers' blog.
The binary versions are available in two versions: one requires Java 1.5 or later; the other will work with Java 1.4. ThinWire is built and tested in a Java 1.5 environment and takes advantage of many of the Java 1.5 language features such as generics and enums. If you will be working in a Java 1.5 or later environment, you should use the Java 1.5 build. The Java 1.4 build is accomplished by using a product called Retroweaver that enables us to build a 1.4 binary that is dependent on a Retroweaver runtime library. The Retroweaver runtime is included in the Java 1.4-compatible binary versions, and the Retroweaver build tools are provided with the source packages.
Different ThinWire Distributions
Many different download options are made available at thinwire.com:
- ThinWire Software Development Kit (SDK). (This is the most prominently displayed download link on the entire site.) The SDK includes the following:
- The ThinWire library in binary form (Java 1.4 compatible)
- The ThinWire source code
- The ThinWire API documentation
- The ThinWire demo applications (Hello World, Playground, and Mail)
- A slimmed-down version of Apache Tomcat 5.5
- ThinWire library (requires Java 1.5+)
- ThinWire library (Java 1.4 compatible)
- ThinWire source code
- ThinWire API documentation
- ThinWire library snapshot build (requires Java 1.5+)
- ThinWire library snapshot build (Java 1.4 compatible)
- ThinWire Source Code Snapshot
Snapshot Builds vs. Official Releases
Periodically, we will package up a snapshot from our development trunk. These builds include new features and bug fixes, but haven't gone through as much review and testing as the official releases. If you discover a bug with an official release, try running the latest snapshot build to see whether the bug has already been fixed. We also use the Sourceforge-provided issue tracker. All known bugs are logged in the tracker, and their status is kept up-to-date.
Building from Source Code
You can download source code zip files of all official and snapshot releases at thinwire.com. You can also check out the development trunk from our Subversion repository which is hosted at Sourceforge. Using the command line svn tools, just enter the following:
svn co https://thinwire.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/thinwire/framework/trunk
To build the framework, you need a JDK of at least version 1.5 (even for the 1.4 builds) and Apache Ant. All build and runtime dependencies are included in the source zip and the development trunk. Open a command prompt in the build directory. The Ant script provided is the same one we use to create the snapshot zip files. It is located in the build subdirectory. You may invoke four targets.
- dist -- Compile the framework, create a JAR, and package it along with other required runtime files into a distribution zip.
- dist14 -- Compile a Java 1.4-compatible version of the framework, create a JAR, and package it along with other required runtime files into a distribution zip.
- source -- Create a source-only distribution that contains everything necessary to build the framework.
- javadoc -- Generate the framework API documentation and package it into a javadoc-only distribution zip file.
