FX Experience Has Gone Read-Only

I've been maintaining FX Experience for a really long time now, and I love hearing from people who enjoy my weekly links roundup. One thing I've noticed recently is that maintaining two sites (FX Experience and JonathanGiles.net) takes more time than ideal, and splits the audience up. Therefore, FX Experience will become read-only for new blog posts, but weekly posts will continue to be published on JonathanGiles.net. If you follow @FXExperience on Twitter, I suggest you also follow @JonathanGiles. This is not the end - just a consolidation of my online presence to make my life a little easier!

tl;dr: Follow me on Twitter and check for the latest news on JonathanGiles.net.

Modena Theme (Update)

Modena Theme (Update)

We have been working really hard on the new Modena theme for JavaFX 8. I think we are finally really close so I wanted to share with you where we got to. I really hope you like the progress and direction. We took a lot of the feedback from the last blog into consideration. Overall though I am really happy and feel that this is going to do as much as we can to make JavaFX applications look great out of the box.

Modena example windows

Retina Mac
For those lucky enough to be running on Retina Mac then we also have support for Retina now in JavaFX 8 and with Modena so enjoy.
retina-pic

Trying for your self
The almost final version of Modena will be available this week in Java 8 Early Access build 81. For instructions for enabling Modena and running the test application see the first Modena blog post.

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JavaFX 3D Early Access Available

JavaFX 3D Early Access Available

If you came to JavaOne 2012 or watched they keynote online you would have seen a cool proof of concept we did along with Canoo and Navis. In case you missed it, its on YouTube:

It was built on a early JavaFX prototype with added 3D mesh, Camera and Lighting support. The first public build of JavaFX 8 with the official support for this is now out for you to download, yay!

Download Java 8 EA b77 (including 3D) …

At the moment there is only support for Windows but a OpenGL version for other platforms is being worked on.

For a list of 3D features that are being worked on then check out the Open JFX wiki:
wikis.oracle.com – OpenJDK – 3D Features

Here is a very simple example to help you get started:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.scene.*;
import javafx.scene.paint.Color;
import javafx.scene.paint.PhongMaterial;
import javafx.scene.shape.*;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class Shapes3DViewer extends Application {
    @Override public void start(Stage stage) {
        PhongMaterial material = new PhongMaterial();
        material.setDiffuseColor(Color.LIGHTGRAY);
        material.setSpecularColor(Color.rgb(30, 30, 30));

        Shape3D[] meshView = new Shape3D[] {
            new Box(200, 200, 200),
            new Sphere(100),
            new Cylinder(100, 200),
        };

        for (int i=0; i!=3; ++i) {
            meshView[i].setMaterial(material);
            meshView[i].setTranslateX((i + 1) * 220);
            meshView[i].setTranslateY(500);
            meshView[i].setTranslateZ(20);
            meshView[i].setDrawMode(DrawMode.FILL);
            meshView[i].setCullFace(CullFace.BACK);
        };

        PointLight pointLight = new PointLight(Color.ANTIQUEWHITE);
        pointLight.setTranslateX(800);
        pointLight.setTranslateY(-100);
        pointLight.setTranslateZ(-1000);

        Group root = new Group(meshView);
        root.getChildren().add(pointLight);
        
        Scene scene = new Scene(root, 800, 800, true);
        scene.setFill(Color.rgb(10, 10, 40));
        scene.setCamera(new PerspectiveCamera(false));
        stage.setScene(scene);
        stage.show();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }
}

Simple 3d Example App

I can’t wait to see what sort of cool things you guys will be able to do with it 🙂

Modena – new theme for JavaFX 8

Modena – new theme for JavaFX 8

We have been working recently on a new theme for JavaFX 8. The current theme for FX, named Caspian, is showing its age and we wanted to take the opportunity to give JavaFX a face lift for 8. Because folks have created custom controls and designs for their app, we needed to make sure that selecting the theme was something that you could opt-out of. We will be providing both API and command line switches in 8 to allow you to specify caspian specifically. If you do nothing, you’ll get Modena, our new theme, by default. Without further ado this is what it looks like:

Modena-Windows
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JavaFX for Tablets & Mobile

We’re running a little survey here at FX Experience to get input from JavaFX developers (and everybody else!) as to the ways they would use a port of JavaFX to smartphones and tablets (think: iOS, Android, and WinRT). This is your chance to really influence the future of JavaFX! Get your friends to participate!

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