What Scene Builder needs YESTERDAY!

[Tom Eugelink]

I have no problems using JavaFX's animations for my purposes, which are decorative effects. I do not need an editor for that, forced me to use it and it probably will even get in my way. Which BTW was the case with the Flash coding that I have done; I hated that Flash EDI, it was way too much focussed on animation. Actually that is why Adobe created Flex, which basically was flash-for-developers (instead of animators). JavaFX is more a alternative for Flex than Flash.

Tom


On 24-11-2014 11:20, Felix Bembrick wrote:
> Really? My point is, why have such good built-on classes to support the building of everything from simple animations to complex visualisations if it is practically impossible to do so?
>
> On 24 November 2014 at 21:02, Tom Eugelink <tbee at tbee.org <mailto:tbee at tbee.org>> wrote:
>
>     I do not think that JavaFX is aiming at replacing flash, HTML and javascript are doing a great job there, hence animations are not equally important as they were for flash.
>
>     Tom
>
>
>
>     On 24-11-2014 10:46, Felix Bembrick wrote:
>
>         I am surprised more people have not expressed an opinion on this.  To me,
>         it seems absolutely *vital* to the long term (or any term) success of
>         JavaFX.
>
>         Haven't any of you ever programmed in Flash?  Can you imagine trying to
>         create any of those complex (or even the simple) animations and
>         visualisations *without* a visual editor and by doing it code alone?  It
>         wouldn't have been practical (read possible) and similarly, and with JavaFX
>         having even richer features, to do this "by hand".
>
>         To me, this is the reason why we haven't seen any great
>         animations/visualisations/applications using JavaFX and we probably never
>         will until a visual animation editor is available. Specifying and
>         controlling the motion and appearance of numerous complex objects and their
>         transitions relying exclusively on code would not be possible for even the
>         "gunnest" JFX coder...
>
>         On 18 November 2014 at 02:48, Richard Bair <richard.bair at oracle.com <mailto:richard.bair at oracle.com>> wrote:
>
>             I’m afraid at this time there are no plans for adding an
>             animation/transition effect editor to Scene Builder, certainly not in the
>             short-term.
>
>             Thanks
>             Richard
>
>                 On Nov 13, 2014, at 7:34 PM, Felix Bembrick <felix.bembrick at gmail.com <mailto:felix.bembrick at gmail.com>>
>
>             wrote:
>
>                 Java applets were the first "programs" to run inside a web browser and
>
>             for
>
>                 a (little) while they were flavour of the month.
>
>                 But then along came Flash which had several advantages such as faster
>
>             load
>
>                 times, consistent loads and antialiased fonts/graphics and soon
>
>             completely
>
>                 surpassed applets.
>
>                 But the MAIN reason why Flash was initially so successful and went on for
>                 years and years of domination is that the Flash tools had an
>                 Animation/Timeline Editor pretty much from the beginning.  This enabled
>                 even a novice to drag images around and draw the path they wanted them to
>                 move along, add all sorts of bouncing effects and sounds and the result
>
>             was
>
>                 the birth of the online greeting card company.
>
>                 But Flash soon went on to be so much more.  As the Adobe tools improved,
>
>             so
>
>                 did the SWFs and soon entire websites were written in Flash.
>
>                 Meanwhile, applet programmers had absolutely nothing remotely similar and
>                 had to try (and I stress try) to tediously hand code any animations and
>                 transitions and effects and I don't think it ever worked.
>
>                 Fast forward 15-20 years and now we have JavaFX which doesn't need to run
>                 in the browser, has even more features than Flash, uses hardware
>                 acceleration for superior performance, has a wide range of built-in
>                 animations, transitions and effects but STILL we have to hand code any
>                 animation/transitions.
>
>                 This is INCREDIBLY inefficient and unless Scene Builder incorporates a
>                 powerful, sophisticated animation/transition and effect editor VERY, VERY
>                 SOON I fear that the advanced graphics features are never going to be
>
>             used
>
>                 to their full potential (much to the detriment of JavaFX itself).
>
>                 Does anyone know if one is in the pipeline?  I see this as one of the
>
>             most
>
>                 vital features for the JavaFX ecosystem to achieve more penetration and,
>                 eventually, survive.
>
>                 Felix
>
>
>
>