A new theme for JavaFX

[Michael Strauß]

Continuing the discussion that was started in the CSS media queries thread:


On Mon, Dec 2, 2024 at 11:55 PM Kevin Rushforth
<kevin.rushforth at oracle.com> wrote:
> > I'm thinking a bit bigger than just "Modena Dark". Since JFX 19, we've
> > added focusVisible, platform preferences, CSS transitions, and now
> > hopefully media queries. After this is done, I think we should
> > leverage all of those new features, and create a bold new theme for
> > JavaFX that feels at home in the year 2025.
>
> Depending on the scope, that's a pretty ambitious goal. :)  Were you
> thinking of something derived from Modena (e.g., a "Modena 2025") that
> incorporates all of those things and maybe a few other tweaks? Or are
> you thinking a brand new "from scratch" theme? Based on past experience
> (the switch from Caspian to Modena in FX 8), the latter will require
> quite a lot of work, and someone with a good artistic eye and attention
> to detail to drive it. I expect it would be a fairly long process and
> require a *lot*  of testing.
>
> Anyway, that doesn't need to slow down this feature. This feature would
> help with either approach. And application developers would be able to
> take advantage in their own stylesheets before that.


While I think that Modena is a nice-looking theme, I can't help but
think that it's a nice-looking theme for the mid-2010's. It dates the
JavaFX platform, and its look and feel is the first thing that people
see when they interact with JavaFX (either with the framework itself,
or with user-facing applications). The UI landscape has evolved quite
a lot in the past decade. I think there is great value in completely
modernizing the JavaFX user experience, firmly and boldly moving it
forward, and making the framework attractive again for a new
generation of developers.

Ideally, this is more than a "Modena 2025" refresh. I completely agree
that this is a big project, and it requires talented people to pull it
off. However, there _are_ talented UI designers and developers in the
JavaFX community. I hope this will start a discussion on how a modern
JavaFX user experience can look like, and how we'd be able to achieve
it.