JavaFX Script - Reviving the Java UI

The buzz

The JavaOne 2007 was abuzz with the JavaFX talks. There are so many questions and opinions circulating the blogosphere also. Some feel it does not have the moolah to take on Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash/Appolo while some (including myself) feel FX will revolutionize the way ‘user experiences’ are defined on Desktop and on Mobile.

What is JavaFX Script

JavaFX Script is a brand new DSL ( Declarative Scripting Language) created by Chris Oliver of Sun. It is the fruit of 3 years of development. The project code was F3 (Form follows Function). JavaFX Script supports static typing intended for IDE support. JavaFX Script supports type inference and declarative semantics. But unlike other scripting languages JavaFX supports compile time error reporting.

Theoretically JavaFX Script can be targeted for any underlying platform like Java 6 VM, MIDP or even OpenGL. JavaFX UI are guaranteed to run the same across Desktop, Mobile , TV or any consumer device which supports it. Instead of depending on the Swing UI architecture, JavaFX Script leverages Java2D. JavaFX Script does away with the messy event listener code from the UI code. The server and component states are bidirectionally updated without manual coding in JavaFX Script.

Advantages

I have been learning JavaFX Script and must say that it is easy. But manually coding for the UI may not be a long term option. JavaFX currently lacks tooling. But things will change as a GUI design form for Eclipse and Netbeans Mattisse are on the anvil.

The responsiveness of applets always left lot to be desired. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) based on Swing was difficult for large scale deployments, because it required a huge JRE presence/download. Many of the JRE components like CORBA, RMI etc.. is not used by many users, still keeps the size of the JRE bigger. This poses a big problem of using JavaFX as a RIA platform.  But there is hope further!. Sun is planning for a Consumer JRE as an update of 1.6. This will be a stripped down version - yet fully functional, with the lazy loading of required modules on demand. They are rumored to keep the size of JRE to a minimum of 2MB.

Licensing

Sun has promised to make JavaFX opensource. Since it is not a part of the platform, it will not be a part of JCP. It will just act as an application running on top of the VM.

Directions

JavaFX will definitely require great content authoring software for it to be widely adopted by designers. It would be really interesting to watch how JavaFX handles rich media, television, streaming, audio, video and svg.

Resources

JavaFX Home
Setting up Netbeans for JavaFX
JavaFX Project Home
JavaFX Script Programming Language reference