Deployment: native application bundles

[John C. Turnbull]

This is very promising but has a few problems at present.

I downloaded both the JavaFX Ensemble EXE and MSI installers along with the
JFXtras Ensemble MSI installer.  They all install fine but the JavaFX
Ensemble application doesn't work on my Windows 7 64-bit machine.  It runs
but selecting any of the demos does nothing.  I am sure this is just a
teething problem as the JFXtras app works fine.

The main deficiencies are as follows:

1. There is no icon installed on the desktop.  Putting an icon on the
desktop is standard Windows application installer behaviour.
2. There is no notification that the install has completed successfully.
3. The EXE installer looks ancient and bland.  When compared to something
like the Flash installer and updater which are sleek and modern looking, the
JavaFX app installer looks very poor.
4. When running the app, there is no icon set for when you use Alt-Tab to
flip between running applications. It still feels like a Java app instead of
a native Windows app.
5. The app does not get installed into an appropriate location such as
Program Files. Again this feels like a non-native app and doesn't permit it
being run my more than one Windows user on the same machine.
6. The download size is way too big.  Having to download nearly 50MB for a
basic app that just lets you select a few controls is a problem in this
mobile platform centric world.  I realise Project Jigsaw will address this
but it is definitely a problem at the moment.

I look forward to continued improvements in this technology.

-jct

-----Original Message-----
From: openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net
[mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of Igor Nekrestyanov
Sent: Friday, 15 June 2012 17:17
To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net
Subject: Deployment: native application bundles

Hi,

One thing we are adding to JavaFX packaging tools in 2.2 is ability to
produce native application bundles:
     
https://blogs.oracle.com/talkingjavadeployment/entry/native_packaging_for_ja
vafx

We are not seeing this as the only way to deploy JavaFX applications --
webstart, embedded applications and doubleclickable jars are first class
citizens (and it would be great to explore other options).
But we hope it might be good option for many deployment scenarios.

Please give it a try and provide feedback (and report bugs of course),

-igor