Five years ago: Soon all Java applets may look the same

First published 2 April, 1997.

Java applications are about to get Office-ised. Sun, Netscape and IBM said yesterday they are collaborating on making Java applets share a common user interface (UI) look and feel just as Microsoft imposes screen design regulations for software vendors who want to sport the 'Office-compatible' badge.

The heavyweight troika is to produce a JavaBeans component toolkit - called Java Foundation Classes (JFC) - to aid developers build a UI that will remain the same whatever the platform. JFC will also be built into various Java development tools.

The fly in the ointment is that Microsoft, whose J++ is the best-selling Java development environment on the market, has not yet agreed to support JFC.