My first question, which might be among many that may soon be explained, is what kinds of tools to expect for JavaFX.
A long while back, Sun mentioned that it was developing something akin to Flash Studio. Is that tool still in the plans? Is it going to be a standalone tool, or does it exist more as a series of plugins to existing tools such as Photoshop/Illustrator (for graphics work) and NetBeans (for the visual designer)?
The FAQ mentions a few things about the Netbeans plugin (http://www.javafx.com/htdocs/previewfaq.html), not sure how up-to-date this info is.
The www.javafx.com doenst seem to render for me (FF and IE)… hmmmm
The website worked for me, and it looks pretty nifty. I still have absolutely no idea what it’s really supposed to do, but there were some fairly impressive demos on there.
mouep…
I managed to launch a sample… and ? it disapperar when I start to scroll… and get over some other window…
than? I managed to launch a second sample, yea!, ha … my desktop is filled by those samples…
so i finished with two nice white square sticked on my desktop, with probably some nice graph inside…
we call the designer tool (tool) here at sun, it’s my job to get it made (being the lead designer on the tool, i now have a dream team to build it). this project in sun is a very important and over the last year all we have been doing is designing the way it works (full-on none stop, its a lot of fun), its a dream project to all on the team.
i’ll try and anwser questions best i can…
exept it doen’t seem to work very well here it will be really great for java if you’re planning to release some tools ala director/flash, no ?
DzzD the designer tool is in development at the moment. javafx 1.0 (not the preview) is along way ahead of the preview with many changes. But the tool is very much more important to us here, and we dont want to get it wrong. I was a fan of Director and the world of lingo, great the way you could just play everything without a massive compile.
If there anything anyone here would love to see in the Tool we’re more then happy to have input, tell tell, it may happen 
from the technical perspective… Is the designer tool based on the NetBeans platform? Eclipse RCP? Or not java at all?
Netbeans and other applications frameworks are all nice, but i dont think we’ll be letting that completely lead the needs for the Tools design, the Tools design and interaction needs will lead its underlining framework.
well a platform usually manages common tasks like modularity, window management, configuration, wizards etc. (aka the app server for desktop apps). A minimum eclipse RCP or NetBeans apps is a empty gray window…
The answer surprised me a bit, its like sun prefers to start from scratch instead of reusing and improving things (@see darkstar vs glassfish, java vs javafx script…). But since we actually know nothing about the designer and its “design and interaction needs” this may be justified.
(maybe the JavaFX designer will have to throw virtual balls with a Wii remote like controller against the monitor? ;D)
or wii consoles againt his colorful balls ? :o
I see nothing that would prevent a designer tool to be made on top of the netbeans platform. Actually I would consider doing otherwise when creating a complex Swing-Application being a waste of time (IMHO of course). And when it comes to the need of a JavaFX scipt editor in the designer tool, not having used the netbeans platform would shape up as a major wrong decision. Remember that the script editor is one of the weak spots of Director.
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Totally different. Darkstar was build from the ground up for game transactions. Very different set of requirements and needs from a development perspective.
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[quote]Netbeans and other applications frameworks are all nice, but i dont think we’ll be letting that completely lead the needs for the Tools
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+1
[quote]well a platform usually manages common tasks like modularity, window management, configuration, wizards etc. (aka the app server for desktop apps). A minimum eclipse RCP or NetBeans apps is a empty gray window…
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and are also loud, create dependency, and force you to dowload several Mb to produce a simple window
[quote]I see nothing that would prevent a designer tool to be made on top of the netbeans platform. Actually I would consider doing otherwise when creating a complex Swing-Application being a waste of time (IMHO of course). And when it comes to the need of a JavaFX scipt editor in the designer tool, not having used the netbeans platform would shape up as a major wrong decision. Remember that the script editor is one of the weak spots of Director.
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personally, I would really prefer that javafx stay away from eclipse, netbean and other IDE, I mean if someone whant to create an eclipse or netbean plugin, it will be able to do such but distrbuting the javafx with and IDE or forcing end user to use a specified IDE will be really a wrong way (IMHO)
NB: my first reaction when i went to javafx was to download the API in standalone mode (without netbean), and I was deceived to see that even in this one there wasn’t a simple way to build demo
Glassfish is a set of modules bundled together into an distribution. v2 had its own module system (based on HK2), v3 will use OSGI. There are no technical reasons why darkstar is a separated project and lives in a separated community. The smallest subset (worst case, which means started from scratch like it is now) which could be reused from glassfish are monitoring, admin and module system.
again, platforms are modular and solve common tasks you would have to implement in a large project anyway. I think you are confusing IDEs with application platforms (e.g eclipse RCP, or NetBeans platform). The main point is that applications like an designer are no “simple window” and people already realized it.
Modular means you can extract everything useful and remove everything you won’t need or you want to improve because of
for example special “design and interaction needs”. You have no dependency to the platform, just to the module you like to use and the module system. In fact I know even a project which uses NetBeans filesystem apis in a non desktop application.
NetBeans uses a default Java services lookup mechanism (but a little bit extended), eclipse OSGI for modules and is the standard in most enterprise systems.
It is extremely inefficient to solve already solved problems. At least in germany it would be really hard to convince people to pay for a middle sized desktop project which is not based on a platform.
Shouldn’t a JavaFX IDE be built using JavaFX?
Kev
Dunno but I’d love to get some excellent tools into Eclipse to have a stab at it.
Cas
Aye, maybe there’s room for a small enterprising group (maybe from the UK?) to build some Eclipse JavaFX tooling to pre-empt the no doubt tidal wave of users once JavaFX is live?
Kev
Yes if JavaFX succeeds there will be probably also good eclipse plugins.
But if Sun is not using its own technology for RCP apps this is IMO a major mistake. Even if there won’t be much NetBeans platform in the JFX Designer… they should at least put it on the press release.
I am really not advertising NetBeans or similar, I even worked in more eclipse RCP projects than in NetBeans projects in past but this is IMO really a missed opportunity.
Strange world.
i’m with you kev!