JavaFX 1.3 Leakage at Devoxx 2009

I love it when Sun employees like Richard Bair and Jasper Potts demonstrate features, and show code samples (in wet concrete of course), for upcoming JavaFX releases. In this post I'd like to bring some of these Sun-leaked features and code samples to light.  Please note that this talk was a preview, and things will of course change before the final JavaFX 1.3 release.

 

From Enterprising JavaFX by Richard and Jasper at Devoxx (and the 1960-70s judging from the Devoxx theme-art this year)

After delivering a brilliant explanation of how to use the JavaFX Task API (introduced in JavaFX 1.2), Richard went on to expose some of the planned JavaFX 1.3 controls.  Here's a shot of the slide that denotes some of the UI controls in 1.3 with asterisks:

The ListView, TreeView and TableView controls will allow you to customize their contents with the use of the Cell class shown in the shot below:

To create a custom cell, use the cellFactory function reference of the ListView, TreeView or TableView classes, and supply background, node, and/or foreground values.  This approach allows the runtime to memory manage cell instances:

Please note that ListView was introduced in 1.2, but will be greatly improved in 1.3.  TreeView will be introduced in a basic form in 1.3, and TableView will be released post-1.3.

Here's a busy shot of a UI controls demo from Richard, for which Jasper later apologized because the demo isn't skinned to Jasper's liking:

Later, Jasper discussed the strategies for styling JavaFX components moving forward  as shown in the shot below, and then focused on CSS for styling components on desktop, mobile and TV:

Here's an example of using CSS to style the scene, which cascades to controls contained by the scene:

Jasper then discussed the regions construct that will be included as an internal API in 1.3, and possibly exposed to developers in future releases:

 

Regions can be used, for example, to help create custom component such as the ScrollBar shown below:

Another upcoming item of interest from this presentation is that the underlying graphical toolkits will be replaced (post-JavaFX 1.3) with Prism, which will provide a much faster UI and a common toolkit across devices on which JavaFX is deployed.

This post has only scratched the surface of what was presented in the hour-long Enterprising JavaFX session at Devoxx, but hopefully it gave you a taste of some the many features coming in JavaFX 1.3.  Thanks to Jasper and Rich for sharing!

Regards,

Jim Weaver

Comments

[rk tumuluri]

Swing & JavaFX combination ?.

Perhaps most of the folks who are awaiting the JavaFX 1.3 release have seen this ... In any case

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/2009/06/10/insiders-guide-mixing-swing-and-javafx

Since a lot of the Swing controls are robust, you could use them and add subtle effects/animations per Amy's advice. The "wait" for JavaFX 1.3 might get easier this way ?.

[Junior O]

It's really amazing. No release date as of now?? Looking at the new things they are bringing out, I can't figure out why it is taking that long. They are cool but not that cool to warrant this eternal thriller/suspense. For an end-user, I am torn between implementing my own stuff or waiting for 1.3. And I wonder if it is even worth it. I waited for 1.2 only to find out the ListView was actually a ListBox. Maybe I should just migrate to Flash and comeback and look at Fx in 5 years time. I'm sure 1.4 will be released by then

[Zilti]

Hi there,
Is there anything new about JavaFX 1.3? e.g. a new estimated release date?

[wooby]

I really need TableView and waiting for this component.
:)