JavaFX links of the week, May 2

by Jonathan Giles | May 2, 2010 | Links

It’s nearly the end of my time in California – I head back to New Zealand tomorrow evening – but before that I need to post a new JavaFX links of the week. This week there were a tonne of posts, and so this post is very long. I had to keep my comments to a minimum as otherwise the post would have been even longer. Let’s get into it!

• Following on from his first JavaFX 1.3 CSS post last week, Dean Iverson has continued with two further posts discussing what’s new in JavaFX 1.3 CSS support. They are highly recommended reading. The first post covers the topic in detail, and the second asks what this is all good for?
• Futher to these posts by Dean, the JavaFX documentation team has also posted about how to style with CSS.
• We added two new posts detailing the improvements to ListView in 1.3, in particular the introduction of cells. The first post discusses the support for dynamically variable row sizes, and the second post dives into how to create cellFactories.
• Alex Ruiz has announced that he has made progress in testing JavaFX application user interfaces. This allows for work to continue with the FEST-JavaFX project designed to make testing JavaFX applications easier.
• TimeShot is a very interesting JavaFX application I came across this week. It can create some interesting effects with photos, which you can see, and try for yourself, at the TimeShot website.
• Johannes Schneider has done a tonne of posts recently, so I can only cover the blog titles here. ‘JavaFX: Custom controls in 1.3‘, ‘JavaFX 1.3: Template for custom controls‘, ‘JavaFX Light Bulb with improved UI performance‘, ‘JavaFX: Bug in Timeline(?!)‘, ‘JavaFX: Transparency and Linux‘, ‘New JavaFX default font (Amble Condensed) looks ugly!‘, ‘JavaFX: Making a CustomNode resizable‘, ‘JavaFX: Template for resizable CustomNode‘, ‘JavaFX: How to extend CustomNode properly‘, and ‘JavaFX Bug or Feature? Panel doesn’t layout if placed in class‘
• Daniel Ziltener has blogged about the ‘on invalidate’ statement that has largely slipped by in the JavaFX 1.3 release.
• Rakesh Menon has updated his code to save a scenegraph to an image to work with 1.3.
• Peter Pilgrim has blogged about the 3D capabilities introduced in JavaFX 1.3.
• Joeri Sykora has blogged about isometric tile rendering in JavaFX 1.3 for a game he is working on.
• Patrick Champion has updated his Duke animation in JavaFX 1.3 to make use of what is new in 1.3.

Wow, that’s a heap  of posts. Hope there was something there for everyone. As always, feel free to email me if you have anything you want included or to just generally discuss. Have a great week everyone 🙂

JavaFX links of the week, April 25

by Jonathan Giles | Apr 25, 2010 | Links

Well, look at that – JavaFX 1.3 came out this week. This weeks links are obviously largely about this, as I expect it to be for some time. 1.3 is a great release, but rather than rehash my thoughts here, I’ve got a bunch of links to other posts below. Enjoy! 🙂

• As mentioned, JavaFX 1.3 came out this week. You can read the official blog post about it, check out the new features, and read the migration guide to understand what was changed since 1.2.
• We posted a ‘Welcome JavaFX 1.3‘ post, and also covered our top 10 features of JavaFX 1.3. We also plan to start putting up a bunch of posts over the next week or two to cover more details in JavaFX 1.3.
• Stephen Chin has covered his top 10 features in the new JavaFX 1.3 release.
• Dean Iverson has done a great job filling in the gaps on how to style JavaFX, this time with a blog introducing how to use the new CSS styling available in JavaFX 1.3.
• Jim Weaver has posted a 3D JavaFX application that demonstrates some of the new 3D API and functionality in javaFX 1.3.
• Johannes Schneider has done a bunch of posts recently, so I’ll just mention the titles here: ‘JavaFX: Creating custom controls – the right way‘, ‘JavaFX: Bounds by example‘, ‘JavaFX: Gotcha in skin assignment‘ and ‘JavaFX 1.3: Binding improved‘.
• Pedro Duque Vieira has blogged about adding animated characters to the Modellus project he is working. Of additional interest is that this application is a merging of Swing and JavaFX. Check out the YouTube video to see it in action.
• Mark Anro Silver has posted two code samples on JFXStudio. The first one shows glow and lighting effects, and the second post showing how you can apply effects on top of graphics for interesting effects.
• Peter Karich has posted about his thoughts on creating simple desktop widgets in JavaFX. He also posted about creating a shadow motion effect in JavaFX.
• Itssmee has blogged about comparing the Processing language to JavaFX Script.
• Have a play with the MetaMaps tool being created in JavaFX, and be sure to offer any feedback you may have.

That’s all folks! Keep sending in the links and I’ll catch you in a weeks time.

JavaFX links of the week, April 19

by Jonathan Giles | Apr 18, 2010 | Links

It’s time for another weeks worth of links from the JavaFX world. This week we have a range of different articles, so hopefully there is something for everyone. Enjoy.

Just a FYI: for the next two weeks I’m in Silicon Valley so whilst I’ll try to post new links I can’t guarantee anything. Be prepared for some silence, and perhaps follow me on twitter – perhaps I’ll post interesting links straight to there for a few weeks as well.

• Robert Eckstein has just put out an article on the Sun Developer Network website covering JavaFX 1.2 UI controls, particularly Buttons.
• Sten Anderson has blogged about flipping nodes with the JavaFX PerspectiveTransform. This is a good read (aside from the Nickelback images), as it gives a few pointers you may not realise otherwise.
• Rakesh Menon has posted about creating a generic OAuth implementation in JavaFX. This might be a very useful starting point for people who intend to connect to OAuth-based web services in JavaFX.
• The Exadel JavaFX Plug-In for Eclipse has been featured on Javalobby.com. If you want to develop JavaFX in Eclipse, you should consider this plugin.
• Cedarsoft have posted some tips and tricks about building controls in JavaFX. It extends from a post I did last year, and I know it has proven useful to some people who have come to me with problems building controls recently.
• itssmee has created a JavaFX-based dashboard that shows how the UK economy has progressed over the last 10 or so years. It’s quite an interesting, if a little limited (and slow).
• Mark Anro Silva has posted two code snippets. The first one is a simple effect example, and the second what he refers to as a ‘preloader‘, but from the looks of it is a loading screen.

That’s all folks. Catch you in a weeks time…..hopefully.

JavaFX links of the week, April 11

by Jonathan Giles | Apr 11, 2010 | Links

Wow – this weeks post has a number of really good links for people who are interested in JavaFX. Let’s get right into them!

• Just a reminder: Stuart Marks is presenting at the Silicon Valley JavaFX Users Group on April 14 at the Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores. Remember, you can also watch the presentation live online, time zones permitting 🙂 For those that don’t know Stuart, he is a member of the JavaFX Controls team, and he’s been at Sun nearly as long as I (Jonathan) have been alive (give or take one year) 🙂
• Rakesh Menon has created a modal dialog in JavaFX, and it actually works very nicely (with the constraints present in JavaFX 1.2). Check it out if you need a modal dialog for your application.
• Stephen Chin has announced the release of JFXtras 0.6, which is a long time in the making and as such has a heap of new stuff. Check out Stephen’s post to find out more details. Somewhat embarrassingly my menu control turns up in there. Apologies in advance to anyone using that set of controls 🙂 As noted elsewhere, improved menu controls turn up as previews in JavaFX 1.3.
• Speaking of new JavaFX controls, I stumbled upon the MindFusion UI Pack for JavaFX this week which is a commercial controls pack for JavaFX. My only comment: be weary as to whether this’ll work in JavaFX 1.3 before splashing out some cold hard cash for it.
• Eric J Bruno has published an article on Dr Dobbs titled ‘JavaFX Database Programming with Java DB‘.
• A new release of the JavaFX Plugin for Eclipse has been released, taking it up to version 1.2.4.

That’s things for another week – I hope you enjoyed these links. As always, keep up the hard work folks and I’ll catch you all in a weeks time.

JavaFX links of the week, April 5

by Jonathan Giles | Apr 4, 2010 | Links

Another week, another bunch of interesting links. This weeks standout links are probably the blog post by Stuart Marks, and Simon Morris‘ new XML library for JavaFX. What do you think – was there better or bigger JavaFX news in the last week? If so, leave a comment and let us know!

• The JavaFX geeks and newbies forum passed a milestone this week, seeing member number 200 sign up. This is most probably the best community-driven site related to JavaFX around right now. Join up and join in on the discussions!
• Stuart Marks has posted a very useful blog post about function return type inference in JavaFX. The basic premise: always declare the return type of all functions, and indeed the type of all variables. It just makes life easier and more predictable.
• Simon Morris has just released a LGPL project he calls Arkles, which is a “new library that takes advantage of JavaFX Script’s declarative syntax, combining it with a subset of the XPath notation, to create a more natural and manageable way to process XML documents in your JavaFX applications”.
• Stephen Chin has announced that the Silicon Valley JavaFX Users Group presentations are now able to be watched in Ubivent, a JavaFX application designed specifically for this purpose, and being used by paying customers. Also, don’t forget to sign up for Stuart Marks’ talk coming up on the 14th. I’ll remind you again in a week.
• Mark Anro Silva has posted a small JavaFX code sample, and video, of an application where he has animated a person walking around the stage.

Keep up the good work folks – we enjoy reading what you’re all up to, and it’s our pleasure to help present your hard work to the public. As always, feel free to contact me if you feel like you want something covered in next weeks post.

JavaFX links of the week, March 29

by Jonathan Giles | Mar 28, 2010 | Links

Wow, a heap of links this week for JavaFX. Also, if you’re remotely interested in JavaOne, it’s important to note that registration is now open for JavaOne 2010. From looking at the session proposals for the JavaFX track, it’s going to be a really good year! Righty, on with the links.

• A lot has been said this week about whether or not JavaFX is ready for the prime time. Coming out to give his perspective on the issue is Adam Bien, who lists 11 reasons why he thinks JavaFX is on the right path.
• Tor Norbye has blogged about transparent windows in Linux, based on his experience in building the upcoming Authoring Tool and testing it across platforms.
• Johan Vos has blogged about map rendering in JavaFX using data from OpenStreetMap. He provides both a runnable demo, and also the code. What’s most fascinating is how little code was actually written to support this – it really is a tiny amount.
• Rakesh Menon created a Wizard UI in JavaFX which is actually quite nice, and certainly usable for people wanting to show wizards in JavaFX.
• Exadel have released version 1.2.3 of the JavaFX Plugin for Eclipse. They have also announced that they plan to release more regular, and smaller, updates for the plugin (once every two weeks or so).
• Nathan Erwin emailed me about a Maven Javafxdoc plugin that he has been working on. This allows for you to easily generate JavaFX API documentation as part of the Maven build process.
• Peter Pilgrim has posted a new demo of his Moonlander game, which along with providing a new stage also fixes a few bugs.
• Joshua Smith has blogged about static fields and functions in JavaFX. This is one of those areas that differs from how it is done in Java, but it’s certainly still possible in JavaFX to have static fields and functions.
• If you’re wanting to learn more about JavaFX then Sang Shin has a slide deck titled “JavaFX: Building RIA Application” you should check out. Unfortunately, the ‘Application’ part of the title is a little redundant given the RIA acronym preceding it, but it’s a very easy trap to fall in to.

Hope there was something useful in these links for everyone. As always, feel free to get in touch with us if you have any links or comments you want to share. Catch you all again in a weeks time!