JavaFX and iOS - it will remain a dream

[John C. Turnbull]

Tom, why do you think FXML on mobiles is a bad idea?  Performance?

-----Original Message-----
From: openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net [mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf Of Tom Schindl
Sent: Wednesday, 31 July 2013 16:29
To: Niklas Therning
Cc: openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net Mailing
Subject: Re: JavaFX and iOS - it will remain a dream

I don't think it is a good idea to use fxml on embedded and mobile, we are working on a fxml => java converter so you can add it to your build process.

Tom

Von meinem iPhone gesendet

Am 31.07.2013 um 08:11 schrieb Niklas Therning <niklas at therning.org>:

>>>> after many days trying to really build iOS apps with JavaFX and 
>>>> RoboVM
>> or
>>>> Avian I’m very frustrated because of the following things:
>>>> 
>>>> Based on RoboVM, JavaFX on iOS runs unacceptable slow - I don’t 
>>>> know
>> the
>>>> reason - maybe it’s the rendering model of JavaFX - maybe it’s the 
>>>> currently unoptimized RoboVM One big problem of RoboVM is it’s 
>>>> dependence of the Android library, it does not support the OpenJDK. 
>>>> That’s a big reason for many many
>> problems
>>>> when using JavaFX. So currently it’s not possible to use fxml files
>>>> (FXMLoader) because of the missing Stax xml parser and classes like 
>>>> XMLInputFactory in the android library…
> 
> There's now a compatibility library for the jfx78 backport which 
> includes the missing sun.* classes from OpenJDK [1]. So that will not 
> be a problem when running on RoboVM/Android. Daniel Zwolenski is 
> working on getting this into Maven which will make it nice and easy to develop with RoboVM+OpenJFX.
> 
> FXMLLoader relies an StAX and the Java Scripting API. Those can both 
> be made to work on RoboVM/Android. The POM of the compat project [1] 
> contains optional dependencies on the StAX API and JSR 223 API. For 
> StAX you'll also need a StAX provider [2][3]. For scripting you'll 
> need a JSR 223 implementation of the scripting language you're using, 
> like Rhino for JavaScript [4][5]. Please note that I haven't tested 
> FXML but it should work (in theory at least ;-) ). Please give it a 
> go. It will be a great blog story if you can make it work on iOS.
> 
> As for the performance issues with RoboVM+OpenJFX: those WILL be addressed!
> You can either wait for it to happen or you can help out. One way to 
> do that would be sample code that exercises the code paths that need 
> to be optimized (e.g. the button rendering you posted about earlier). 
> Preferably the sample should run repeatedly without user interaction. 
> You should then be able to run Apple's Instruments application to 
> profile this sample. This will help us determine what needs to be optimized.
> 
> /Niklas
> 
> [1] https://github.com/robovm/robovm-jfx78-compat
> [2] https://github.com/FasterXML/aalto-xml
> [3] http://woodstox.codehaus.org/
> [4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Rhino
> [5]
> https://java.net/projects/scripting/sources/svn/show/trunk/engines/javascript?rev=236