For months and months we’ve been focused solely on the mechanics of building a platform — API design, writing tests, fixing bugs, use cases, features, documentation etc — and with the release of the beta the #1 question on everyone’s mind is, “Is JavaFX 2.0 cross platform?!”. That the beta is initially a windows-only beta has apparently stirred up a fair amount of concern. Shockingly, some people have even asked whether we ever intend to be cross platform. I can say definitively “Yes, of course!”. It would be quite illogical for any platform released by the Java team to not be cross platform. And even more so for the Java team to release a platform which had no intention of being cross platform while also purporting that the said platform was to be the next generation Java rich client platform.
We absolutely will be targeting a whole host of different platforms, not even just the big three (Mac, Linux, Windows). The value of the Java platform is in the fact that you can write across multiple operating systems and devices.
Now, somewhat like Apple, Oracle doesn’t tend to make premature announcements. I cannot at this time comment on when support for different platforms will be available, but hope to comment when such announcements have been made through the official channels. I know that this form of communication strategy leaves people to their own imagination which, as often as not, seems to be rather pessimistic in nature :-). So, to help provide some guidance here, I’d just like to say:
JavaFX will be cross platform.
Is there a release schedule for Linux and Mac versions?
Hi Lucas, I can’t comment on timelines without an official statement, which hasn’t been put out yet.
so long time waiting for, and i was so excited with the news that the beta has finally released, then when i went to download, hmm, there’s something wrong, where is the mac version?
well, let’s await again 🙁
Is it possible to make JFX widgets LNF default to native? Like in swing one would do UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName())
are we allowed to distribute the javafx runtime?
Not just the big three?
Is android the fourth?
You say: “will be targeting a whole host of different platforms, not even just the big three (Mac, Linux, Windows)”.
What are the other platforms?
Is mobile also included?
Thanks, cheers.
That’s the best thing that happened to java since Swing filthy rich clients book, I’ve been reading the documentation to get in touch with the platform, and all I can say is that is awesome ! I will enjoy this summer experimenting with it, all samples look fantastic, and we got multimedia and the webBrowser component and all in Java API !!! thanks to Oracle and all the javaFX team for your effort !!!!
cheers and keep on the god job !
I wonder why Oracle/Sun has not changed for a new name.
“javaFx”, “Swing” are so linked with media-failure or beauty-failure.
AnyOtherName would be ( I believe) much better.
why not “javaVisual” or “javaScreen” or javaSomething now that this APOI is Oracle/Sun gui API ?
@Thierry: It’s a good point, but on the other hand if they would use a new name and discontinue JavaFX it would be admitting failure.
I’m so optimistic about this javafx release after trying it out such that I find the platform noise so annoying! Its obvious the guys have not forgotten about other operating systems. if you just run the ensemble example which is soo easy to disect, you instantly know there is change in the air.
Sometimes I wonder why the graphical Java community hasn’t welcomed Processing into the fold as a standard. They’ve already done SO much work to make it work consistently across everything and its a time tested api and community.
In the EE world, when a new technology pops up and dominates, the spec leads notice and then you have newer specs that adopt it, (spring => ee6 for example). Why doesn’t this happen in the SE world? Processing should be recognized, and adopted asap.
Good work guys, JavaFX 2.0 looks very promising. After going through couple of FX2 tutorials I really appreciate Oracles decision to use java language instead of FX script. Little bit disappointed about no mac/linux version but acceptable since it is just a beta.
I find it problematic to release a cross-platform toolkit without a cross-platform implementation. Remember good old AWT in the pre-Swing days? It was meant to be cross-platform, but there were so many little gotchas, particularly when it came to event handling, that writing a cross-platform application was very hard.
If I want a Windows solution, I’ll just use the Microsoft tools–they are hard to beat for that platform. If I want a cross-platform desktop solution, I want to evaluate it on Windows, Mac, Linux, to see if it really is what it claims to be.
Cross-platform isn’t something that can be applied after the Windows version works. I am particularly concerned about media, and I am not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling when I read that JavaFX will just use the media playback that’s available on a given platform. That’s AWT think, and it’s not going to work.
Cay, I have to agree! Which is why we have not developed a windows version in isolation of everything else — or even first!. I develop only on a Mac, and have done so for the past 3 years. As many developers here work on Mac as work on Windows, and a number are on Linux. Gerard Ziemski, who designed the initial version of Glass (our windowing layer replacing AWT) works only on a Mac and writes and maintains the Cocoa code. The first platform Glass came up on was a Mac, and was subsequently ported on Windows (and differences between Mac and Windows were at that time worked through). The guys working on the windows version are also the AWT maintainers who for years have wanted another go at it to fix the problems of AWT. We’re really very well versed in these problems :-).
As for media, it sounds like there is some documentation which needs addressing. We are using gstreamer for the media framework, which as I’m sure you are aware is really quite widely adopted and works well on multiple platforms.
Now, I’m not prepared to make a statement on timetables or on why the windows 32-bit is the only one released at this first beta. But do bear in mind, we’re releasing a new beta build every 2 weeks. This isn’t a release candidate! It is a snapshot in time which represents a certain level of development and a certain level of testing.
3 months later, still no Linux or Mac beta. Why not? Cay’s concerns certainly resonate with me.
Hi Sullivan, our roadmaps for these platforms will be made public at JavaOne, the first week of October. Cheers!
Is the source code going to be released?
Oracle has announced that the source code for the user interface controls will be made open source. They have not announced any plans yet regarding the rest of the source code.
I am furious at the Windows only (for the foreseeable future) position of Oracle. I have hung on for this technology. I have a huge personal investment in Java, primarily in Swing. But, JavaFX is dumped, for me – am moving on, albeit with sadness. The world is no longer Windows only, nor likely to be ever again. There are so many other avenues to explore: Android, Scala, HTML 5.
Hi Martyn, I’m quite puzzled by this response. The “foreseeable future” is absolutely not the position taken by oracle. It is for the very short term only. Have you noticed that we take screenshots from a mac?
very short term only !? — I captured this page:-) and i want the nightly build for Snow Leopard or Lion/p4 more than screenshots 😀
I totally agree with most comments posted here. I mean, we hear you, Richard, thank you for your explanations. Not easy, eh? 😉
Now,
* if it is because there’s still too many technical issues for the Linux version, we can understand it. But isn’t the Linux devel ‘community’ a reliable one when it is about testing and feedbacks? we’d prefer to help rather than waiting.
* I understand that Oracle have to put some priorities, but I don’t when Linux users/devels/entrepreneurs have to wait during an +undefined+ amount of time. In addition to this, windows is the only supported platform. It seems clear that even now in 2011, the Windows user base got the top priority and the others have to sit down and wait silently. Why not? I understand that Oracle have the right to choose its move. But it’s odd, as we are talking about a cross platform dev tool.
As of today I didn’t download this windows beta. Sad. Maybe is it time to look forward and rethink some of my plans.
@Richard,
I found a following sentence in http://javafx.com/faq/#5 .
In this page said: —
” 5. What operating systems are supported by JavaFX?
JavaFX 2.0 will be fully supported on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Early Access versions of JavaFX 2.x for Mac OS and Linux will be made available at a later date, but support for these platforms will not be included as part of the JavaFX 2.0 final release.” —
I couldn’t understand especially last part of that if JavaFX will be cross platform?
What is not included final version, or what exactly pointed “support for these platforms”?
Please, Thanks.
JavaFX 2.0 will be a Windows-only release. Future releases of JavaFX 2.x will include support for Mac OS, Linux, etc.
Hope that clears things up.
Thank you Jonathan!
I’ve understood that 2.0 is not 2.x.
Is this mean these version will be released after Q3 of this year?
Thanks.
OMG.. what a pity.
Thank you, Jonathan.
when does the this come out for mac?
I am starting a development of a cloud application, it is a new development from scratch that has a good market potential as it is aimed at the needs of about 80% of businesses.
I want to use Java / JavaFX as a technology platform, but without a clear statement on what JavaFX will support how can I make this call, i really don’t want to have to use FLASH, but may be forced into it.
Can we please have some idea what the FX road map is
Hi Neil, I would recommend contacting Nicolas Lorain and joining the partner program.
Thanks, for those explanations…
Too many people was thinking that JAVA FX 2.0 would be only for Windows OS.
I hope that the JVM start more faster for JAVA FX 2.0.
”
JavaFX 2.0 will be fully supported on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Early Access versions of JavaFX 2.x for Mac OS and Linux will be made available at a later date, “(but support for these platforms will not be included as part of the JavaFX 2.0 final release.)”
”
That part of text could be changed.
http://javafx.com/faq/#5:
“5. What operating systems are supported by JavaFX?
JavaFX 2.0 will be fully supported on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Early Access versions of JavaFX 2.x for Mac OS and Linux will be made available at a later date, but support for these platforms will not be included as part of the JavaFX 2.0 final release.”
is a final release a beta ?
I’m not sure what you mean. A beta is not a final release, but the final release will be coming soon and meet the criteria defined here.
Good to know that Fx2 will be available on Linux.
We are eagerly waiting, no I should say desparately needing Fx2 on linux for our enterprise client applications which in would enter development phase soon.
Current swing ui simply look too outdated compared to web html/css graphics for our client. We cant use a web-based client as we have hw interfaces (unless we work around that, which is a tedious and hard to maintain design)
Please help push Java Fx2 on linux release date. “-)
So…. any news about the linux support???
Sooooooon
How soon????
I am starting a new project and I realy want to do it in JavaFX, but it should run in Windows and Linux(at least in a near future)…
Could you tell me how soon?
I downloaded NB7.1 and there’s no DesktopApplication available anymore so I decided it’s time to learn JavaFX. I have a linux machine so I was really disappointed that JavaFX works exclusively with windowsn. The FAQ says mac/linux versions will be available in “late 2012” but that is a real good way of saying never because no one will wait another year. We’ll adopt another technology instead.
Looks like my company will lock in on NB 6.9.1 / jdk6 / Qt4.8
rm -r ~/netbeans-7.1 ~/jdk1.7.0_02
1GB diskspace freed.
Though the GA versions are not expected till later in the year a Beta will be available much sooner.
Sigh… Another year gone by and still no linux support. No need to waste any more time investigating JavaFX.
You are aware that as of yesterday there is linux support in the JavaFX 2.1 dev preview release, right: http://fxexperience.com/2012/01/javafx-2-1-dev-preview-build-09-available-for-windows-mac-and-linux/
It seems like the only platform JavaFX runs under is x86.
We have a lot of developers on SunRay’s being served by SPARC platforms around here – it would be nice for them to actually develop and be able to see something.
Will SPARC Solaris support be coming soon?
When is JavaFX going to work under Solaris 11 SPARC desktops?
OpenIndiana desktops?
I don’t really care about those old Solaris 10 SPARC platforms – but the new Solaris 11 SPARC platforms are where it really needs to be!
Is there a plan to make javafx 2.0 work on android? What considerations should I make if I develop an desktop application using javafx 2.0 which I intend to make available for android later?