Adam Bien's Weblog
In 2008, JavaFX-Script could take off
JavaFX Script is kind of underestimated. Most demos I saw look awesome, but they try to imitate Flash and Co. Beyond the remarkable 2D capabilities, Java FX Script is even interesting for "casual" business applications. Concepts like "binding" and "lazy binding" (comparable to PropertyChangeListener implementation in Java, but hidden behind one single keyword), triggers (or the end of getters and setters), seemless and very easy (no overhead) integration with Java and declarative composition of UI makes Java FX Script really interesting for the realization of MVC or Model View Presenter apps with a fraction of code (compared to Java).
Behind the scenes Swing Components are mostly used, so actually the "bleeding edge risk" is relatively small. You can still switch to Java - your application would look exactly the same. Even the animations can be seemlessly backported to Swing - but of course with more overhead. The tool support for Java FX is actually surprisingly good. E.g. the Netbeans Plugin already supports code folding, autocompletion, syntax highlighting etc. Even first graphical designer are already available.
Shortly before christmas an interesting Key-Frame extension (even more DSL) togehter which additional interesting demos were introduced. This should make the creation of interactive rich internet applications even easier.
However to be successful in the web designer space a visual Java FX designer for eclipse or netbeans would greatly help. But: who knows what happens at the next JavaONE?:-)
Posted at 12:30PM Dec 31, 2007 by Adam Bien in Java / JEE / Architecture | Kommentare[5]
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Hi,
are you sure that JavaFX is right for business applications and already ready for use? Or is it too early to start business app projects with JavaFX? I don't know the target group of SUN for JavaFX but if I remember correctly on the W-JAX it was told that swing should not be replaced with JavaFX.
Personally I like the idea to seperate GUI and logic and use different languages for it. The best language for the specific part. I tried this a few times but it was not easy to reuse java code in JavaFX especially when data binding was needed. You can bind a model to a gui if both is written in JavaFX. But if the model is written in java it is not so easy. Don't know the current state but 4 month ago it wasn't possible.
In the end it was much easier to write the logic in JavaFX too instead of Java. Since JavaFX is statically typed this could be also interesting for people not interested in scripting languages.
Greetings
Michael
Gesendet von Michael am January 01, 2008 at 05:39 PM CET #
Yet Another point (was not allowed to write more than 1000 characters): In Netbeans we have great GUI builder (matisse). The netbeans plugin for JavaFX is nice but not comparable. To write business applications with JavaFX a similar GUI designer is needed with the focus on building forms, not doing animations and other funny things.
Greetings
Michael
Gesendet von Michael am January 01, 2008 at 05:39 PM CET #
Michael,
Great points. Good tooling is the key to success. But Java FX Script tooling is now lot better, than at the JDK 1.0 time for Java :-). Beyond this point: Java FX is lean and expressive - so it is nice to use iteven without visual designers...
Thank you for your comment && happy new year! Sorry for the thousand words limit (JRoller default setting...),
adam
Gesendet von Adam Bien am January 01, 2008 at 08:56 PM CET #
Hi Adam,
you are absolutely right. Java FX is lean and expressive enough to be written by hand. But after doing some work with Matisse I don't wanna miss it.
In my opinion a guideline for writing applications with graphical user interfaces is very important. And this is something SUN had to do. They should describe the way they imagine, how applications with guis should be written in the future: Swing or JavaFX. And if JavaFX: How can it be combined with Java.
The wiki on planetjfx.org gives some hints how to work with it, but official best practices and guidelines are still missing. Therefore I believe that it is not ready for business applications. The technology is still too young at this moment. But I agree: The potential is existent. Thus 2008 can be very exciting.
Michael
Gesendet von Michael am January 02, 2008 at 10:00 AM CET #
Hi;
I'm arafat bouchafra a moroccan softxare engineer, and I use java for 5 years old, I'm very enteresting about javafx, and I can't to fing a full pdf tutorial or course, Can you help me ?
thanks
Gesendet von arafat bouchafra am March 31, 2008 at 08:46 PM CEST #