Future of JavaFX

[Kevin Rushforth]

Just to chime in on a couple of points that have been raised in this 
discussion...

* We are interested in working with the OpenJFX community to improve 
JavaFX. In particular: if you find a bug, file it (via bugs.java.com if 
you don't have a JBS account); if you want to contribute a patch to fix 
the bug, we'd love to review it; if you have an idea for an improvement, 
file it as an RFE (enhancement) and start up a thread on the mailing 
list. Larger features need a JEP, but smaller improvements do not.

Please be aware that as part of the OpenJDK community, we are bound by 
the processes of the OpenJDK, including the need for a signed OCA in 
order to contribute, and before you can get a JBS account. If you are 
dissatisfied with those processes and policies, then I invite you to 
discuss it on the discuss at openjdk.java.net alias, and not here.


* While we aren't planning a huge number of features in JDK 9, we are 
delivering some interesting improvements. Jigsaw is the big release 
driver and most of our effort on JavaFX is to align with that. For those 
of you who weren't at JavaOne, here is a list of things that are 
currently planned for JDK 9:

- A modularized JavaFX (into 6 core modules + deploy, swing interop, swt 
interop)

- JEP 253 -- Control Skins & additional CSS APIs (proper support for 
third-party controls)

- High DPI enhancements (full support on Windows; add support for Linux)

- Public API for commonly used methods from internal packages:
    * Nested Event Loop
    * Pulse Listener
    * Platform Startup
    * Text API (HitTest, etc)
    * Static utility functions (under investigation)

- New versions of WebKit and GStreamer

And here is an incomplete list of things we are thinking about for after 
JDK 9, possibly in an update release. In fact, the recently proposed JDK 
9 slip [1] makes it possible to consider pulling a few of them into JDK 
9, so let us know which ones you consider most important:

- Provide a JavaFX equivalent for JEP 272 / AWT ‘Desktop’ API

- Make UI Control Behaviors public

- UI Control Actions API

- Public Focus Traversal API

- JavaFX support for multi-resolution images

- Draggable tabs

- Image IO


-- Kevin

[1] 
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk9-dev/2015-December/003149.html