I don’t have any experience with Java but I assume you would need some sort of native .NET Java Virtual Machine or something to host/interop with your Java app/binaries? I’m seeing some hits on Google for this but I don’t yet see something worth linking to here.
If such a thing exists and is stable on .NET Framework, then I suppose you should be able to embed Java objects into a plugin in Smart Client using it? Alternatively depending on what it is, you could try launching your Java stuff in an external process, passing on relevant state info through parameters or something?
We unfortunately don’t have any experience with running java code from inside the Smart Client in the SDK team either, so I am afraid that Josh’ answer is as good as it gets. Sorry.
Two options that I know of but have not tried:
- http://www.ikvm.net : a open source java cross compiler for the .net runtime. It will run java 8 and it’s framework classes on top of the .net runtime unfortunately support for it has been mostly dropped in the last few years but it is still used quite a bit. There is a large community using this, but no commercial support.
- JnBridgePro is a commercial product ($$) that runs both the java runtime and .net framework and bridge the two. This is a paid product but is has commercial support options.
Those are the only techs I know of that do this. Building UI in java to put into smart client is never going to be as native an experience as doing it in .NET directly, but at least this gives you some way forward.