James Weaver on Quantum Computing and Java: The JavaFX SDK Packages are Taking Shape

June 27, 2008

The JavaFX SDK Packages are Taking Shape

Now that we're getting close to the Technology Preview Release of the JavaFX SDK, the classes that have been created so far have been organized into a more fine-grained package structure. The impact is mainly in the import statements as you can see in this updated Hello/Goodbye example from a previous post. As a quick reference, the list below contains the packages in JavaFX and the classes that are contained in each package. By the way, you can download the latest Technology Preview Release here

and see the API documentation in more detail.

javafx.application

Applet
Application
Dialog
Frame
Window

javafx.animation

Interpolatable
Interpolator
KeyFrame
KeyValue
SimpleInterpolator
Timeline

javafx.async

AbstractAsyncOperation
RemoteTextDocument

javafx.ext.swing

AbstractButton
AbstractPanel
BorderPanel
Button
Canvas
CheckBox
CheckBoxMenuItem
Cluster
ClusterElement
ClusterPanel
ComboBox
ComboBoxItem
Component
ComponentView
Container
ContainerGap
Dialog
FlowPanel
Frame
Gap
GridPanel
Icon
Label
Layout
Layout.Alignment
Layout.Relationship
List
ListItem
Menu
MenuItem
Panel
ParallelCluster
PreferredGap
RadioButton
RadioButtonMenuItem
ScrollPane
ScrollableComponent
SelectableButton
SequentialCluster
Slider
TextField
ToggleButton
ToggleGroup
Window

javafx.input

KeyCode
KeyEvent
MouseEvent

javafx.lang

DeferredTask
Duration
Sequences

javafx.scene

Cursor
CustomNode
Font
FontStyle
Group
HorizontalAlignment
Node
Orientation
VerticalAlignment

javafx.scene.image

Image
ImageView

javafx.scene.paint

Color
CycleMethod
LinearGradient
Paint
RadialGradient
Stop

javafx.scene.transform

Affine
Rotate
Scale
Shear
Transform
Translate

javafx.scene.layout

HBox
VBox

javafx.scene.geometry

Arc
ArcTo
ArcType
Circle
ClosePath
CubicCurve
CurveTo
DelegateShape
Ellipse
FillRule
HLineTo
Line
LineTo
MoveTo
Path
PathElement
Polygon
Polyline
QuadCurve
QuadTo
Rectangle
SVGPath
Shape
ShapeIntersect
ShapeSubtract
StrokeLineCap
StrokeLineJoin
VLineTo

javafx.scene.text

Text
TextOrigin

javafx.scene.media

Media
MediaError
MediaPlayer
MediaTimer
MediaView

javafx.scene.effect

Blend
BlendMode
Bloom
ColorAdjust
DisplacementMap
DropShadow
Effect
FloatMap
Flood
GaussianBlur
Glow
Identity
InnerShadow
InvertMask
Lighting
MotionBlur
PerspectiveTransform
Reflection
SepiaTone
Shadow
Source

javafx.scene.effect.light

DistantLight
Light
PointLight
SpotLight

javafx.util

StringLocalizer

Some Other Recent/Upcoming Changes

There have been a couple of changes to JavaFX language syntax recently:

The "not equals" operator used to be <> but has been changed to the Java-style !=
The modulus (remainder) operator has been changed from % to mod.

Also, a new web services library is in the works that will make it even easier to communicate with remote services required by your application. As a result, the JSON and XML libraries are being pruned from the Technical Preview Release branch, but they are still available in the SVN repository if you need them. You can read the current thinking about the web services library in this message on the dev@openjfx-compiler.dev.java.net mailing list. As is typical with JavaFX libraries, the likely outcome will be a simplification of the design in that message.

Finally, I'd like to point out something that is very exciting to me -- the fact that JavaFX is migrating to a "node-centric" approach. As you may know, underneath the covers of the JavaFX UI for the desktop are Java Swing (components) and Java2D classes (graphical nodes). Eventually, most UI constructs in JavaFX will be graphical nodes, including the components (e.g. Button) and layout panels (e.g. BorderPanel). This will eliminate the need for using "adapter" classes like Canvas (to place a node on a panel) and ComponentView (to place a component on a Canvas). This will also make it easier to create UIs that have an "iPhone look and feel" that users will increasingly expect. As you can see by the fact that Dialog, Frame and Window exist in two packages (javafx.application and javafx.ext.swing), this migration has already begun. An examination of the JavaFX documentation for the Frame class in the javafx.application package, for example, will show you that the content attribute of its Window superclass contains a sequence of Node objects. Compare this with the Frame class in the java.ext.swing package whose Window superclass has a content attribute that still contains a sequence of Component objects. The latter, by the way, will be around at least until the migration to a node-centric UI is complete.

Have fun, and please post a comment if you have any questions!
Jim Weaver
JavaFX Script: Dynamic Java Scripting for Rich Internet/Client-side Applications
Immediate eBook (PDF) download available at the book's Apress site

Posted at 05:56 PM in JFX | Permalink

Comments

I miss the TextArea component and a multi line label.

Posted by: Silveira Neto | July 23, 2008 at 07:47 PM

The demos won't compile outside netbeans!

First:
-do-compile:
[javac] Compiling 2 source files to /Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/Assortis/build/classes
[javac] /Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/Assortis/src/assortis/core/ProjectManager.java:136: package org.jvnet.substance.fonts does not exist
[javac] org.jvnet.substance.SubstanceLookAndFeel.setFontPolicy(org.jvnet.substance.fonts.SubstanceFontUtilities.getScaledFontPolicy(1.25f));
[javac] ^
[javac] /Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/Assortis/src/assortis/core/ProjectManager.java:136: package org.jvnet.substance does not exist
[javac] org.jvnet.substance.SubstanceLookAndFeel.setFontPolicy(org.jvnet.substance.fonts.SubstanceFontUtilities.getScaledFontPolicy(1.25f));
[javac] ^
[javac] Note: /Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/Assortis/src/assortis/core/ProjectManager.java uses unchecked or unsafe operations.
[javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:unchecked for details.
[javac] 2 errors

BUILD FAILED
/Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/build.xml:9: The following error occurred while executing this line:
/Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/Assortis/nbproject/build-impl.xml:375: The following error occurred while executing this line:
/Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/Assortis/nbproject/build-impl.xml:172: Compile failed; see the compiler error output for details.

After commenting out the troublesome code, one gets dependencies from netbeans:
/Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/build.xml:9: The following error occurred while executing this line:
/Users/hansi/Downloads/archive/openjfx-compiler-tp1/dist/demos/BasicDND/nbproject/build-impl.xml:428: taskdef class org.netbeans.modules.java.j2seproject.copylibstask.CopyLibs cannot be found

Posted by: hansi | July 02, 2008 at 12:23 PM