Sun Microsystems Inc. has added to its support for developers by moving new projects to its community development environment and offering new tools for Java developers, while Oracle Corp. is pledging new support for the Microsoft .Net platform.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Friday announced that it has posted two new projects to the java.net community development site for Java developers. Sun posted JAI (Java Advanced Imaging) and JAI Image I/O Tools to the 115,000-member java.net community.

JAI simplifies the creation of imaging applications and delivers high-performance image processing functionality to Java applications, according to the company. The JAI Image I/O Tools provide a pluggable framework for reading, writing and streaming image data and metadata, company officials said.

Meanwhile, Sun also moved a preview of Mustang, the next release of J2SE (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) to java.net for developers to review.

Sun, like Microsoft Corp., is moving to provide developers with more access to early builds of its developer environments. Microsoft has shown its developers its willingness to be more transparent by delivering not only beta releases of its software, but also CTPs (community technology previews), or interim releases of their technology, for developers to review. For its part, Sun is delivering more frequent previews of its developer technology, said Dan Roberts, group manager for developer tools at Sun.

Earlier this week Sun announced the release of a preview of the next major release of its Java Studio Creator tool, code-named Thresher Shark. Thresher, which is expected this summer, is aimed at improving the Web development experience, Roberts said.

Thresher gives developers the ability to "drag in and bind EJB [Enterprise JavaBeans]," he said. "Thresher is designed to improve core design and richness around building Web apps. We're broadening JavaServer Faces components that add functionality. And thinking about where developers deploy Web applications today. They're being built into a more singular portal view—enabling the development of portlets. Some people view the portlet server as we viewed the Web server a few years ago."

Thresher also provides new design-time APIs for building Java Studio Creator components; remote server deployment; an improved style editor; and HTML page import capability. "This enables Web developers to import their existing pages and turn them into JSP [JavaServer Pages]," Roberts said.

Roberts also said Sun recently released the current update to Java Studio Creator, code-named Reef Shark. This version includes component import improvements, a new flow layout mode in the tool's visual designer, usability improvements and an upgrade to the JSF library—JSF 1.1—among other enhancements, Roberts said.

Sun also recently announced that Java Studio Creator, its easy-to-use development environment, and Java Studio Enterprise, its development environment for professional enterprise developers, will be included in the new Sun Java System Suites based on Java Enterprise System. These suites include the Sun Java Application Platform Suite, the Sun Java Availability Suite, the Sun Java Communications Suite, the Sun Java Identity Management Suite, and the Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suite.

Click here to read eWEEK Labs' review of Java Studio Enterprise 7.

Meanwhile, Oracle, of Redwood Shores, Calif., last week announced the release of a beta version of its Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio, a plug-in for developers to use Microsoft Visual Studio .Net 2003 to build Oracle Database 10g applications on Windows.

The commercial version of the plug-in is expected in the second quarter of this year, along with Oracle Database 10g Release 2, which supports .Net through stored procedures based on the Microsoft CLR (Common Language Runtime).

This article was first published on eweek.com.