Make javafx.controls open and community-driven

[Michael Paus]

1+

Am 02.02.21 um 15:12 schrieb Pedro Duque Vieira:
> Hi,
>
> Although I don't agree with everything said here at the start of this
> thread, I agree with the base idea that JavaFX would benefit from being
> more open than it is currently. It's something I've already said here in
> this mailing list and since it's been a while and that discussion probably
> already got forgotten I'll add the comments to this thread again.
>
> Not even just the controls case but more hooks to extend JavaFX just
> generally by adding API that allows for that and making things less
> private/final/etc. It would be great to be able to extend more parts of
> JavaFX in a library independent way (i.e. by creating your own library that
> extends some parts of JavaFX in more fundamental cool way).
> Besides what was already said about controls, here's another example:
> wouldn't it be great for the community to be able to create a library that
> could extend the CSS parser by adding animations, layout support, etc, etc.
> One could argue, why don't you just contribute a PR to the JavaFX code base
> that does just that (adds animation support to CSS, or something less
> trivial like that)? I'd say that that process is too lengthy and often out
> of possibility for an individual developer that wants to improve JavaFX but
> doesn't have time to do it that way.
>
> I see the advantage of exposing less of the internals and why the JavaFX
> team decided to do it. Many of the same guys that developed JavaFX were
> part of the Swing team which were bothered by the inverse situation, i.e.
> being too open (which also can have its disadvantages).
> Weighing in the pros and cons, I still think there's a bigger advantage in
> being more open than closed. This hinders the capacity for the community to
> create libraries that extend JavaFX in new and fundamental ways without
> having to fork JavaFX.
> And this is more of a reality now that the JavaFX team is smaller (than the
> original team) and hence has less capacity to keep improving and adding
> features to JavaFX which means it has to rely more on the community.
>
> I also agree with the process of submitting a bug and following upon it,
> commenting, etc. Ideally it should be easier. That's something that has
> also been brought up before.
>
> Anyways, this mail is not meant to put down the guys working on
> JavaFX, there are no perfect toolkits, each one has its downfalls. Think it
> more like throwing in ideas and sharing my experience of using JavaFX for
> creating libraries and applications.
>