Last week was about Metal and the Skin Designer. This week the headline items are about what a brand new project looks like when you generate it: the default JDK is Java 17, and every generated project ships with an AGENTS.md authoring skill that lets any modern AI agent work on the project intelligently. There are also some other things worth covering: a runtime accent palette on the new native themes, three Metal follow-ups (one of which introduces a new matrix-correct translate API), the JDK 11+ String API gap closed, and iOS push permission that no longer fires at app launch.
What is Codename One? Codename One is an open-source framework for building native iOS, Android, desktop, and web apps from a single Java or Kotlin codebase. Learn more at codenameone.com.
Java 17 by default
We changed the default projects generated by the Initializr to Java 17+ to focus on the future of Codename One. The existing Java 8 option in the Initializr is still selectable from the radio panel if you have a reason to use it. Pick whichever you want.
The Java 17 path is the one we now recommend for new work. Generated projects build with any JDK from 17 onwards (we routinely test on 21 and 25); you do not need to install Java 17 specifically. The bigger picture of how Java 17 support works in the toolchain, including which language features land in your app code and how the iOS / Android ports handle the newer bytecode, was covered in Official Experimental Java 17 Support earlier this year. The change this week is the default and the wording: the (Experimental) tag is gone, and Java 17 is now what you get unless you opt out.
