Remove JavaFX JPMS enforcement

[Ty Young]

On 4/18/20 5:01 AM, Michael Paus wrote:
> Getting started with JavaFX is made overly complicated by the fact 
> that the use of the
> module system is enforced by some code in the JDK. Especially for 
> beginners, who just
> want to get some small program running, this is almost always a big 
> source of frustration.
> It is not very good marketing for JavaFX to make these initial steps 
> such a pain. If you
> need some evidence for this statement, then just follow JavaFX on 
> Stackoverflow or similar
> sites (and also this mailing list). Almost every day you can read 
> frustrated posts from
> helpless people who would just like to get some JavaFX project running 
> but are failing
> because they get lost in the module system jungle.


Speaking as a long time JavaFX user(literally since Java 8), I have 
mostly disagree that the JPMS is hurting JavaFX.


That said, I don't think the frustration is misplaced. What you say is 
true(Netbeans mailing list is fill of JavaFX issues) and the end user is 
*NOT* to be blamed here.


Rather, I think what's to blame is poor documentation, JavaFX requiring 
absurd runtime module VM arguments, and  poor/buggy IDE support.


Starting with documentation, JavaFX uses reflection for things like 
TableView(everyone's favorite) and CSS style sheets. While this may be 
obvious for people who are more experienced, those who are not may be 
very confused when they get an onslaught of error messages regarding 
reflection. Better documentation on what requires reflection, why, and 
how to enable it would be useful.


Likewise, the notice about having to include javafx.graphics to the 
runtime module arguments here:


https://openjfx.io/openjfx-docs/#IDE-NetBeans


Apply to Maven as well, but it's under Ant for some reason. I don't know 
what was changed in JavaFX 14 that now suddenly requires a runtime VM 
argument, but it's a PITA and BS. End users are going to struggle with 
this, and it prevents JavaFX runtime from being purely managed by Maven. 
No other JavaFX version requires this, so it's mind boggling that all of 
a sudden JavaFX needs this.


Poor/buggy IDE support is really the big one here. I don't know about 
other IDEs but Netbeans DOES NOT provide a project template for creating 
a JavaFX application with setup dependencies. Netbeans, when setup with 
a Maven project, allows you to select an entire project(pom) rather than 
the individual dependencies(jar) which doesn't work. What you search for 
also matters: if you search for "JavaFX" you will get the wrong search 
results. You need to search for "openjfx" which can be confusing.


Anyway, yeah, it's a PITA. There is also an issue with Ant based 
projects and Netbeans because JavaFX puts its src.zip in a folder that 
is supposed to only include the runtime library that has existed for 
years(literally a 1 line fix too). No one really uses Ant anymore so 
it's probably not a big deal now but yeah, getting JavaFX working hasn't 
been "include and done" when it could potentially be that way.