Platform independent deployment

[Philip Race]

 > this is Java code after all, why would all Java classes for a 
platform be platform specific?

There absolutely CAN be such things as platform-specific Java classes in 
code that ports to a platform.
OpenJDK is littered with subdirectories named "windows" and "linux" etc.
And it takes great care to build and ship these only on appropriate 
platforms.

In JavaFX such things also exist that are less clear but still 
platform-specific
For example what place does
modules/javafx.graphics/src/main/java/com/sun/javafx/font/coretext have 
in the windows build, or
modules/javafx.graphics/src/main/java/com/sun/javafx/font/directwrite 
have in the macos build ?

None, really, and even though they are there, they really should not be.

So the bottom line is that you should not assume that a platform like 
JavaFX can be
delivered only with platform independent Java code.

-phil


On 10/20/22 1:03 PM, John Hendrikx wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the classes in the artifacts for win, 
> linux and mac are actually exactly the same -- this is Java code after 
> all, why would all Java classes for a platform be platform specific?  
> It doesn't matter which one is packaged.  The platform specific stuff 
> lives in the native libraries -- my shaded jar just includes all of 
> them for all platforms (dll for windows, so for linux, dylib for 
> mac).  I'm pretty sure I used this exact same jar to run my software 
> on windows and linux.  Never tested mac as I don't own one.
>
> My pom therefore includes all three, like Nir Lisker has, and my 
> shaded artifact just packages them all (I get a lot of warnings about 
> duplicate classes, but those can just be ignored).
>
> --John
>
> On 20/10/2022 19:03, Thomas Reinhardt wrote:
>>
>> Hi Nir,
>>
>> Does not work (I testet it) and it can not work (see below).
>>
>> Also, this is exactly what my naive test was (I did not use maven to 
>> copy the artifacts, but the result obviously is the same).
>>
>> It can not work as the implementation classes have the same name and 
>> thus the jre can not distinguish which one to load. For example both 
>> javafx-web-18-win and javafx-web-18-linux define a class 
>> "javafx.scene.web.WebEngine". From the jre's point of view they are 
>> the same.
>>
>> What would be needed is
>>
>> Either: a class "javafx.scene.web.WebEngine" that is only a thin 
>> wrapper to javafx.scene.web.linux.WebEngine.
>>
>> Or: a class that loads only one of the implementations during 
>> application startup (technically it could load both implementations 
>> with different classloaders, but lets not go there).
>>
>> There might be other solutions but I am not aware of any.
>>
>>
>> I was looking for a help forum but did only find the #introduction 
>> link you mentioned.
>>
>>
>>     -Thomas
>>
>>
>>
>> On 20/10/2022 17:52, Nir Lisker wrote:
>>> Hi Thomas,
>>>
>>> Did you try to just specify the platform-specific dependencies in 
>>> the POM?
>>>
>>>      <dependency>
>>>          <groupId>org.openjfx</groupId>
>>>          <artifactId>javafx-graphics</artifactId>
>>>          <version>19</version>
>>>          <classifier>win</classifier>
>>>      </dependency>
>>>      <dependency>
>>>          <groupId>org.openjfx</groupId>
>>>          <artifactId>javafx-graphics</artifactId>
>>>          <version>19</version>
>>>          <classifier>linux</classifier>
>>>      </dependency>
>>>      <dependency>
>>>          <groupId>org.openjfx</groupId>
>>>          <artifactId>javafx-graphics</artifactId>
>>>          <version>19</version>
>>>          <classifier>mac</classifier>
>>>      </dependency>
>>>
>>> Seems more of a question for help forums, though if this information 
>>> is not mentioned in https://openjfx.io/openjfx-docs/#introduction 
>>> <https://openjfx.io/openjfx-docs/#introduction>, it might be worth 
>>> adding it.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 9:42 AM Thomas Reinhardt 
>>> <thomas.reinhardt at s4p.de <mailto:thomas.reinhardt at s4p.de>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>     Hi!
>>>
>>>     Apologizes if this is not the proper list to ask my question.
>>>
>>>     For context: we are using the WebView of JavaFX in our legacy swing
>>>     based frontend application. For now that is the only component 
>>> we are
>>>     using but we might migrate completely at a later point in time.
>>>
>>>     I have an issue with the way platform dependent dependencies are
>>>     handled. We are using maven btw.
>>>     My understanding is that during the build a profile is selected
>>>     based on
>>>     the host os name and architecture. That profile then sets a 
>>> property
>>>     (javafx.platform) that is in turn used as the classifier for 
>>> platform
>>>     dependent dependencies.
>>>     (Offtopic to my question: eclipse warns that the profile ids are 
>>> not
>>>     unique in the org.openjfx:javafx pom.xml).
>>>
>>>     Which means that the result of my build is locked to a single 
>>> platform.
>>>     But we have customers for windows and linux and don't want to have
>>>     separate artifacts as that would mean we also have to handle that
>>>     distinction in our installer etc.
>>>
>>>     I know I can override the automatically detected platform but 
>>> that does
>>>     not solve the issue.
>>>
>>>     Ideally I would use something like -Djavafx.platform=all but 
>>> that does
>>>     not exist.
>>>
>>>     My question is: is there an existing solution where I can just 
>>> include
>>>     all platform dependencies for say windows and linux and the runtime
>>>     "sorts it out"? A naive test (manual copying of artifacts) of mine
>>>     unfortunately failed. Of course I could just use custom 
>>> classloaders
>>>     and
>>>     do it myself but I really would prefer to use an existing 
>>> solution and
>>>     not implement some workaround.
>>>
>>>     If there is no solution (yet), is there interest in such a 
>>> feature? We
>>>     might be able to contribute to the project.
>>>
>>>
>>>     -Thomas
>>>