The JavaFX 2.0.2 release is now available for download. Along with a heap of bug fixes, notable improvements include:

  • Interoperability with the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT).
  • New scroll event that handles scrolling on two axes and replaces the MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL_ROTATED event.
  • Change of license, which enables third party developers to redistribute the JavaFX Runtime with their applications in accordance with the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement for the Java SE Platform Products and JavaFX.
  • Updated doclet for the Javadoc tool that is used to generate JavaFX API documentation in HTML format.
  • Updated NetBeans projects for the JavaFX samples for use with the NetBeans 7.1 release.

The JavaFX documentation team has also put out more documentation to explain a number of areas, including:

  • Styling Charts with CSS describes how to alter the visual appearance of charts in your application. Using the various CSS classes and properties you can set an alternative color scheme, add images and graphical effects, modify the chart legend and plot, and even invent new chart symbols.
  • The Menu chapter of the JavaFX UI Controls tutorial describes how to build a menu bar in your application, add menu items, assign specific actions to each item, and set a context menu for a node.
  • Handling JavaFX Events describes how to create and use event handlers and event filters to process user interactions with your application.
  • Using a Doclet with JavaFX describes how to use the Javadoc doclet that was created for use with JavaFX source code. Using the doclet with the Javadoc tool produces customized HTML documentation.
  • Deploying JavaFX Applications describes a new JavaFX Ant helper parameter, <fx:argument>. Also new is a mechanism for passing images to the <fx:deploy> task. Use <fx:icon> to pass icons for various purposes or <fx:splash> to pass a splash screen image for Web Start applications.

Relevant links:

Welcome to yet another JavaFX links of the week. There is, as seems to be the case these days, a heap of links. Hopefully you all find something of interest. Enjoy! :-)

Catch you all next week…

Ok, this post is slightly early, but I’m not going to be around much for the next three days, so I thought I’d sneak it out a few hours early rather than make you all wait. Also, because I have very, very little time to write this post, it’s going to be a little more succinct than usual. All will return to usual next week, but for now, please enjoy! :-)

That’s that for another week. I’ll catch you back here in a weeks time…..

A very brief blog post to mention that just now the OpenJFX website and the openjfx-dev mailing list both appeared online. I’d recommend everyone interested in OpenJFX developments sign up for the mailing list.

Sometime soon the source code for UI Controls will appear in the mercurial repo. UI Controls are the first part of JavaFX to be open sourced, followed by the rest of the toolkit over the coming months. All development being done on UI controls will appear in this repo, as it happens. The source code that will appear shortly is based on the 2.1 release of JavaFX. This means that soon you will be able to build development snapshots of OpenJFX as it progresses towards each official release. This is exciting for me as it gives you early access to our APIs, allowing you to give us feedback (via our Jira tracker), which in turn allows for us to improve the API before it is released (and set in stone).

It is exciting times – I hope you all get involved! We have much more to discuss, but that can wait for another day.

One thing I see asked a lot (either directly via email, or in the rather excellent JavaFX Forums) is why does TableView (and ListView) look like this in JavaFX 2.0:

A TableView control using default styling and API as provided in JavaFX 2.0.

Read the rest of this entry »

A heap of interesting links this week, so I’m going to skip the introduction and get right into it. Enjoy! :-)

That’s all folks. Keep up all the great work and I’ll be back in a weeks time to cover everything that happens this coming week! :-)

Welcome to another week! :-) There is a heap of good links this week – it seems the quality of blog posts is certainly increasing these days! Keep it up folks :-) As always, I hope you enjoy some of the links below, and always feel free to email me links to include.

  • I mentioned last week that the ThingsFX Swing-in-JavaFX project didn’t support key events, but that it was coming soon. In actual fact, I was wrong – it is already supported.
  • Speaking of ThingsFX, one of the members of that team, Roman Kennke, blogged elsewhere about the Swing in JavaFX integration, and even put up a demo applet that shows the current implementation. As you’ll note, it is a little slow, but it shows a lot of promise once faster options are made available.
  • Tom Schindl has released e(fx)clipse 0.0.8, and now e(fx)clipse also has an official website. This project is very exciting, so if you are an eclipse user and want top-notch JavaFX tooling support, you should check this out and provide feedback.
  • Zonski continues blogging about his research and development with JavaFX 2.0. This week he talks about file downloading in JavaFX 2.0 (over HTTP).
  • Johan Vos has blogged about visualizing REST XML data in JavaFX controls, making use of the DataFX project.
  • Tom Eugelink follows up his JavaFX 2.0 bubblemark explorations after being told of a runtime switch for JavaFX 2.0 that removes the 60fps limit that JavaFX imposes.
  • The slide deck that Stephen Chin and Peter Pilgrim used at Devoxx 2011 for their “JavaFX 2.0 – A Developer’s Guide” session is available online for those interested.
  • Patrick Champion blogged about extending a JavaFX 2.0 control to add functionality. I should probably add that their are simpler ways to doing this in many cases, which I covered in a JavaOne talk called “Custom UI Controls and Charts with JavaFX 2.0“.
  • Andre Hogenkamp has posted a second blog post about running JavaFX 2.0 in Linux (whilst awaiting official support from Oracle).
  • Scott Hommel has blogged about using the JavaFX Screen API to determine the dimensions of the users screen.
  • Eric Bruno blogged about JavaFX 2.0 binding APIs. Whilst it is a good blog to cover the main concepts of binding in JavaFX, it skips over some simpler options that are possible for the specific use case mentioned in the post. For example, rather than bind the TableView width/height to the scene width/height properties (and place them inside a Group layout), if a StackPane is used instead the TableView will grow automatically without needing any bindings. Similarly, some controls have their max width/height set to the pref width/height, so it is simply a matter of calling, say, button.setMaxHeight(Double.MAX_VALUE) to have them grow automatically when placed in a relevant layout.
  • I’ve come across two JavaFX-related projects on GitHub that people may be interested in, but unfortunately no related websites for further details. Firstly, user ‘nahi’ has JRubyFX, and user ‘skrb’ has SVGLoader. Fortunately the project names are fairly self-explanatory :-)

Keep up the great work folks. Catch you all in a weeks time.

Here we go again – this week there are a heap of JavaFX links, so I’m just going to get right in to it – enjoy! :-)

Well, that’s it for another week. Hope you found something useful. Catch you in a weeks time! :-)

Another week, another round of links from the JavaFX world. I hope you all find something of interest. Enjoy! :-)

That’s all for another week. Keep up the great work folks and I’ll be back in a weeks time to highlight everything you’ve been up to! :-)

Here we go for another week! :-) It seems the number of JavaFX links is really starting to pick up after JavaOne. The most notable news this week was that Oracle has started the open source discussion. Find all the details, and plenty of other interesting links, in this weeks JavaFX links roundup!

Hope you all enjoyed the links – catch you all in a weeks time! :-)