I''m using the Java 2d api, and I wanted to know how to do color keying. Previously I drew individual shapes with bezier curves and lines to draw musical notes. I decided it would be faster to draw the notes to buffers first, and then blit them to the screen. Is there some easy way to encode transparency in a BufferedImage, and is there some way take the black note from the buffer and blit it in different colors? http://3d.n3.net/

One cool way to do it would be to create a musical staff layout manager, a music sheet canvas and Components for the notes. Override the paintComponent of the notes and draw your note accordingly. If you extend JComponent, you''ll even get tooltips on each note! The music sheet canvas can draw the staves...

Another possibility is to emulate the way JTables and JTrees work and have a NoteRenderer interface that is used to rubber-stamp notes on the staves...

Now you''ve got me thinking, I wish I had time to do this :-)