Ever since I started targeting Starling Framework for my open source user interface components, I’ve wanted the name of my project to more closely match the Starling brand. The name should reference birds in some way, but also have a deeper meaning associated with the purpose of the code. Allow me to reintroduce Feathers.

A bird’s feathers offer functional and aesthetic benefits similar to how UI controls enhance a graphics library.

Along with the new name comes a number of great changes that help bring Feathers to the next level. The package structure has been simplified. org.josht.starling.foxhole.controls.Button is now feathers.controls.Button. Short and simple. It makes the documentation easier to read and cleans up everyone’s code a bit.

The Feathers Documentation has moved to the official Starling Wiki. If you’re going to develop with Starling and Feathers, everything you need will now be found in one place. Daniel, Starling’s author, has been wonderfully supportive and I can’t thank him enough for being so generous and helpful. Not only with the wiki, but also the Feathers forum. He’s led the Starling community with such positive enthusiasm, and I couldn’t be happier joining him in sharing code and interacting with all the great folks who use Starling.

As part of this relaunch, I’ve also designed a new Feathers theme that I call Metal Works. I made it to match the website design of the new feathersui.com. You can see it in action in the Components Explorer example that highlights many of the UI components that Feathers provides.

I’m looking forward to watching Starling and Feathers grow in the future. It’s been so long since I was excited about my work like this, and I love that I’m returning to component development with such enthusiasm. I hope you’ll take some time to try out Feathers and let me know what you think. Happy coding!