ipc - Communication between two separate Java desktop applications

Question

I'm looking to develop two separate (but related) Java desktop applications.

I want the ability for one application to trigger the other, passing in data that can then be edited and passed back, i.e. the communication will be two way. If the other application is already running I want them to just communicate, i.e. I dont want to just pass arguments over the command line, etc.

Generally speaking, what strategies/techniques should I be looking at in order to achieve this?

Answer 1

To show how easy it is to let two applications communicate with each other, check out this network-clipboard demo using JGroups. Just start two instances and begin dropping files into one of them. The second instance will instantly show the same files.

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import org.jgroups.*;

public class JGroupsTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        final JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setVisible(true);
        frame.setSize(500, 300);
        final DefaultListModel listModel = new DefaultListModel();
        final JList panel = new JList(listModel);
        panel.setBackground(new Color(128, 0, 40));
        panel.setForeground(new Color(240, 240, 240));
        frame.add(panel);
        System.setProperty("java.net.preferIPv4Stack", "true");
        final JChannel channel = new JChannel("udp.xml");
        channel.connect("networkclipboard");
        channel.setReceiver(new ReceiverAdapter() {
            @Override
            public void viewAccepted(View newView) {
                frame.setTitle("Network Clipboard - " + channel.getLocalAddress());
            }

            @Override
            public void receive(Message msg) {
                listModel.addElement(msg.getObject());
            }
        });

        panel.setTransferHandler(new TransferHandler() {
            @Override
            public boolean importData(JComponent comp, Transferable t) {
                DataFlavor[] transferDataFlavors = t.getTransferDataFlavors();
                for (DataFlavor flavor : transferDataFlavors) {
                    try {
                        Object data = t.getTransferData(flavor);
                        if (data instanceof Serializable) {
                            Serializable serializable = (Serializable) data;
                            Message msg = new Message();
                            msg.setObject(serializable);
                            channel.send(msg);
                        }
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
                return super.importData(comp, t);
            }

            @Override
            public boolean canImport(TransferSupport support) {
                return true;
            }

            @Override
            public boolean canImport(JComponent comp, DataFlavor[] transferFlavors) {
                return true;
            }

        });
    }

}