How to use latest java version for GUI applications in OSX Sonoma?

Jpegorino wrote:

That would've made sense why - I didn't use homebrew but I guess it's the same story with sdkman (The "Homebrew" reported by `/usr/libexec/java_home -V` is just read from the Info.plist file I made manually following link 2 instructions - the poster there says that the 'string' values are arbitrary, so I didn't change).

I don't know what's going on there.

It's the same general problem. Nobody wants to do the work to build decent apps and support them. I don't know what sdkman is. Perhaps it is Java built with Homebrew. Or perhaps it is just some other internet instructions that typically assume everyone is using Homebrew.

I tried again with version 22 from Oracle (https://www.oracle.com/uk/java/technologies/downloads/#jdk22-mac) both via the .tar and the dmg, restarting after install both times. The downloaded Java 22 still isn't being used as my default for GUI applications.

Again. Same problem. Hasn't changed in 25 years. If you want to dive head first into the deep end of Java, you can do that. You can configure multiple Java installations and switch between them. Given that someone else has likely just tossed you into the deep end, you may have no choice now.

I don't know. If I need to test something like this in Java, I'll do it in a VM. 😄 I'm sure I only have one Java here.

I did also download Mysqlworkbench though and that seems to run, so I perhaps if it could be just the apps I'm using?

Could be. As I said above. Same problem. Some academic hacked up a Mac app in 2007 and hasn't touched it since. More likely, said academic's grad student did the hacking. Maybe that survived the previous architecture shift to Intel. But now we've changed again to Apple Silicon.

Specifically, it's these I can't load with the oracle Java 22:

https://www.sanger.ac.uk/tool/artemis/

http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/software/figtree/

At least with Java, there's an escape hatch. All you have to do is download the Linux versions of each of these. Java is cross-platform, so it will run. Complex apps like this typically need complex environments. So they will typically have some startup scripts that you will need to use.

For these apps, I was able to run FigTree just by doing "java -jar figtree.jar". Artemis was more complicated. I had to run the top-level "./art" tool, which setup the environment and then ran the appropriate jar file. I guess they're working. Hard for me to tell. The GUIs definitely come up and are functional.

But regardless, if you just pretend like you're on Linux, everything should work as it would on Linux. It's very unlikely that Linux Java apps would have any platform-specific binary code. That's the problem on the Mac. Those Mac binaries are expecting something really specific about Mac Java from many years ago.

With the oracle 22, I now have these settings:

```

jgorzyns@S31-D9502L5V ~ % java --version

java 22.0.1 2024-04-16

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 22.0.1+8-16)

Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 22.0.1+8-16, mixed mode, sharing)

jgorzyns@S31-D9502L5V ~ % /usr/libexec/java_home -V

Matching Java Virtual Machines (1):

22.0.1 (arm64) "Oracle Corporation" - "Java SE 22.0.1" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-22.jdk/Contents/Home

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-22.jdk/Contents/Home

jgorzyns@S31-D9502L5V ~ % head .zshrc

# install software

source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

# java configuration

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)

export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

None of that should really matter. I tested all of these with no changes and no environment settings whatsoever. But it's possible that "sdkman-init.sh" could be some crazy script that will break everything else. I don't know. I think you only need JAVA_HOME for actually building JAVA apps from source.

Java and Homebrew? That's got to hurt.

As a test, I downloaded the latest version of Java 22 from Oracle and installed. Then I had to find an app that actually required Java. I found Mysqlworkbench. I verified that I wasn't located in any of their disallowed countries or a member of any disallowed group and downloaded it. It fired right up.

I don't know what to tell you. Seems to work fine here. Same old story. Yet another homebrew problem.