JavaFX and iOS - it will remain a dream

[Niklas Therning]

Will this converter be able to precompile embedded JavaScript? That would
be very cool. If I remember correctly Rhino can compile JS to bytecode AOT.
RoboVM would then be able to compile that bytecode to machine code.


On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 8:28 AM, Tom Schindl <tom.schindl at bestsolution.at>wrote:

> 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
>