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I have developed apps using Swift as an Agent. It was a simple application that sat in the menubar without any icon on the dock. I would like to create one using Java for some accessibility reasons and I stumbled upon something called a Javaagent.

I couldn't tell if that was what I was looking for and don't want to dive in if its not. If its not, was am I looking for? How do I make an application that doesn't have java popup and just runs on the menubar?

I have looked on many different sites on how to make one but none explaining what it actually is:

example of how to create java instrumentation agent.

Tutorials about javaagents

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Jack
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  • How on earth is this an opinion based question? – Jack Mar 17 '16 at 19:58
  • What you're looking for is the system tray and how to work with it from Java. Here's the doc: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/systemtray.html – Anton Arhipov Mar 19 '16 at 21:53

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A java agent is a basically a specialized "component" that you can load into a JVM that runs your "core application". The agent then provides certain "add-on" functionality; functionality that has nothing to do with what your "core application" is doing.

An example would be JRebel. That is a commercial product which comes Java agent; it is loaded into the JVM when starting up your application server. JRebel then allows you later on "hot swap" java classes. Meaning: the JRebel agent knows nothing about the purpose of the code that you are running within your application server; it only exists to change the bytecode of your classes while the JVM is still running.

Long story short: java agents are for INSTRUMENTATION; they have nothing to do with UI applications or accessibility. Thus the answer is: no, java agents is not what you are looking for.

Instead you might turn to frameworks like Swing, JavaFx or Eclipse RTP; which help you creating GUI applications.

GhostCat
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