Future of JavaFX

[Mike Hearn]

I'm pretty surprised by this thread.

Guys, JavaFX is a widget toolkit. That's it, that's all it is. GUIs haven't
changed that much in their general design and capabilities for decades now,
probably the last major 'innovations' being things like the MS Office
Ribbon.

JFX has all the capabilities I'd hope for in a widget toolkit, plus a lot
more. As a bonus it's open source and cross platform, with a full time team
of developers. Just take a moment to appreciate that for a second! What's
the competition? Qt and that's about it, right?

Software can always be better, but this hysteria over "zomg oracle is
abandoning us!" doesn't seem justified. Even if all Oracle did from now on
was fix bugs and keep it working as the underlying platforms evolve, OK,
it's an open source library with people paid to fix bugs. That's still
better than many of the open source libraries I depend on!

But they aren't just fixing bugs, they're also making enhancements. Yes,
Java 9 is going to be boring because Jigsaw is forcing Team FX to go pay
off some technical debt by making previously private-but-used APIs public.
OK, fine, that amounts to new features for all 3 of you that weren't
cheating previously ;)

Beyond that, the fact that "draggable tabs" is the most user visible
feature planned says to me what I already felt  - JavaFX is pretty mature.
It'd be nice if Scene Builder was being officially distributed again, and I
find the decision not do so baffling (perhaps they're assuming IDE makers
will take it off their hands), but the app is still out there and still
works. I suspect once the Jigsaw changes are finished off further
enhancements will be things like better performance, maybe some new
effects, etc. Nice to haves but not essentials.

IMO the biggest pain-point now isn't even GUI related stuff, it's the lack
of a modern replacement for Java Web Start. I made UpdateFX to try and fill
this hole but it's not as good as something that a skilled full time dev
with 6 months on hand would make.


On Sat, Dec 5, 2015 at 9:56 AM, Markus KARG <markus at headcrashing.eu> wrote:

> JavaFX support for multi-resolution images is really a killer feature, as
> it simply is ridiculous how small images render on HiDPI that are scaled
> for LowDPI.
>
> For JDK 10, I'd kindly ask to review the list of essentials that I sent
> you some months back by personal mail.
>
> -Markus
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: openjfx-dev [mailto:openjfx-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] On Behalf
> Of Kevin Rushforth
> Sent: Mittwoch, 2. Dezember 2015 01:29
> To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.java.net
> Subject: Re: Future of JavaFX
>
> 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
>
>
>