JavaFX on iOS w/OpenJDK Mobile?

[Johan Vos]

To make it very clear, the current set of modules already allows to run
JavaFX applications, e.g. see
https://twitter.com/johanvos/status/691724435175391233

The OpenJFX mobile builds (via http://javafxports.org) do not rely on
RoboVM. The libraries that are created (native + java) have no dependency
on RoboVM API's or tools. The IDE plugins (
http://gluonhq.com/products/mobile/trynow/) that we (Gluon) provide
currently provide a build-procedure that leverages the RoboVM AOT compiler,
but as shown in the screenshot we can also bundle the JavaFX libraries with
the Mobile OpenJDK runtime.

- Johan

2016-04-04 13:52 GMT+02:00 Bob Vandette <bob.vandette at oracle.com>:

>
> > On Apr 3, 2016, at 2:07 PM, cerebra soft <cerebrasoft at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Great work on the mobile port of the JDK.  With some work I've been able
> to
> > successfully build the JDK and launch it in the iOS simulator and on an
> iOS
> > device.  I used the RunJava Xcode project and haven't attempted to use
> the
> > Java Launcher framework yet.
> >
> > I see from the mobile project page that currently the goal is headless
> > support up to compact2 profile.  But of course I want more. ;)
> >
> > I see that OpenJDK JavaFX builds are working on iOS using the RoboVM
> based
> > compiler and the Android Dalvik runtime.  With the recent purchase of
> > Xamarin by Microsoft the future of RoboVM is uncertain.  Also Android
> > itself is moving to OpenJDK instead of remaining on Dalvik.  So the
> future
> > of JavaFX on iOS via RoboVM is unsure for multiple reasons.
> >
> > How far out would you guess (and I understand it would probably be a
> guess)
> > would it be for the mobile project to support full JRE functionality on
> > iOS? Is it a matter of just trying to build JavaFX on top of what the
> Java
> > Mobile project already has, or would that be a fools errand?
> It depends what you mean by a full JRE.
>
> We’ve limited our focus to the modules contained in the compact2 profile
> specification
> since it provides adequate support for a wide variety of mobile
> applications, can
> support Java FX apps and it’s the set of packages used by our MAF (Mobile
> Applications
> Framework product).  Limiting the Java support also provides a smaller
> application
> binary size.
>
> If you rule out Headful support , the work required to support the rest of
> the JDK 9 modules
> isn’t really that bad since most of it is java code.  It is possible to
> provide a compliant
> implementation that is validated in headless mode.  The bulk of the
> remaining work involves
> validating and adapting the few remaining native libraries to iOS &
> Android where the testing
> is probably the largest effort.
>
> >
> > Presuming that may be far off and a great deal of work.  What options are
> > there for using the mobile JRE on the 'back end' of the application and
> > making the 'ui' in something else?
> That’s what I assume you’d use JavaFX for, right?  We have no desire to
> provide a Swing/AWT implementation for mobile platforms.
>
> >  I'd love to keep as much of my
> > application logic in Java across platforms.  Primarily, I think I would
> > need a good way of calling into the JVM from the UI layer.  I'm somewhat
> > familiar with JNI and abstractions like JNA.  Would those work just as
> well
> > with the mobile JRE on iOS?
> Yes, JNI is fully supported on iOS.  You do need to build native libraries
> as static
> libs since iOS doesn’t support dynamic shared libraries but this is
> supported by
> the JNI specification.
>
> Bob.
>
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Rob
>
>