Support for Apple Extensions

[Will Herrmann]

AquaFX looks very good from what I've seen of it, but I have two main concerns for it as a third party skin:

1. The creators may not have the time and resources to continue to make it match the appearance of future OS X releases. This was the issue that Quaqua had; it stopped being developed after Mac OS 10.4. I presume that if a native LAF were an official part of JavaFX, Oracle would continue to update it when future versions of OS X are released.

2. As a third party library, it won't be as widely adopted as it would be if it were an official part of JavaFX. Not being aware that it exists and the hurdles to getting it included in a program (minor though they are) would discourage others from adopting a native OS X look and feel in their app. Besides, JavaFX is stated to be a replacement to Swing, but without an included way to use a native LAF like Swing, it can't be a true replacement for those who need that functionality.

In my ideal world, AquaFX would be merged into JavaFX as a starting point for an official native look and feel implementation, which would then be continued to be developed by Oracle. Similar projects for a native Windows 7 LAF and other platforms would also be merged in at the same time.

Granted, I realize there are somewhat more pressing issues that would affect both JavaFX and Swing apps, such as the functionality provided by com.apple.eawt and com.apple.eio. However, I believe that adding a native JavaFX look and feel for OS X and other platforms should eventually be a priority for Oracle (which is why I voted for the feature request at https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-20299).

-Will Herrmann

On Jul 5, 2013, at 2:27 PM, Fabrizio Giudici wrote:

> On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 21:16:41 +0200, Will Herrmann <wjherrmann at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> AquaFX is one such third party class that tries to bridge this gap via CSS skins, although it's my understanding that it is still undergoing some major revisions so I would be reluctant to use it in a production
> 
> Sure, in fact it's targeted at JDK 8 (see my original mail) because of skins, I suppose. But what about quality? Do you think it won't be optimal and the only acceptable solution is a native l&f?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect @ Tidalwave s.a.s.
> "We make Java work. Everywhere."
> http://tidalwave.it/fabrizio/blog - fabrizio.giudici at tidalwave.it