How do I use JDK 7 on Mac OSX?

Question

I would like to use the WatchService API as mentioned in this link: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/notification.html

After reading around, I

Answer 1

I know that some may want to smack me for re-opening old post, but if you feel so do it I just hope this may help someone else trying to set JDK 7 on Mac OS (using IntelliJ).

What I did to get this working on my machine is to:

• followed instructions on Oracle JDK7 Mac OS X Port for general installation
• in IntelliJ open/create new project so you can add new SDK (File > Project Structure)
• select Platform Settings > SDKs, press "+" (plus) sign to add new SDK
• select JSDK and navigate to /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/JDK 1.7.0 Developer Preview.jdk/Contents/Home. Do not get it mistaken with /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Library/Java/. This will link 4 JARs from "lib" directory (dt.jar, jconsole.jar, sa-jdi.jar and tools.jar)
• you will need also add JARs from /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/JDK 1.7.0 Developer Preview.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib (charsets.jar, jce.jar, JObjC.jar, jsse.jar, management-agent.jar, resources.jar and rt.jar)

Answer 2

As of April 27th there is an offical Oracle release of Java SE 7u4. Download the disk image and run the installer - then see the Mac readme.

Answer 3

What worked for me on Lion was installing the JDK7_u17 from Oracle, then editing ~/.bash_profile to include: export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_13.jdk/Contents/Home