Droplets Inc. announced recently that its rich user interface for Java applications now supports Java servlets.

The Droplets client is a graphical user interface for networked applications, offering users such features as drag-and-drop and resizing windows. A user interface manager, known as the Droplets User Interface Server, runs on a networked server, controlling the view sent to a user's screen. The view the user sees resembles a screen with more of the capabilities of a Microsoft Windows application than a dumb-terminal screen or static HTML page, says Droplets CEO Philip Brittan.

In the past, the Droplets interface could only act as a front end for a Java application built on Enterprise Java Beans, leaving much of the existing base of Java applications beyond its reach.

Now the Droplets rich user interface can be used as a front end for companies "with tons of business logic implemented as Java servlets," Brittan says. Servlets are small Java programs running on a server. They supply specific sets of commands to a Java application server or Web server, such as how to execute a particular E-commerce transaction.

Droplets had to add connector classes to the Java class libraries--code sets that enable a particular feature of the user interface--that underlie its product. With them in place, the user interface may be used as a front end to applications written in standard Java and Java servlets as well as Enterprise Java Beans. Because of the built-in connector classes, most existing Java applications will require little or no change to implement a new user interface, Brittan says.

Most Java application interfaces "produce an inferior user experience," he says. By tying the Droplets interface system to servlets, Java developers "will have a more straightforward process" for developing the rich user interface.