JavaFX Sessions Abound

JavaFX had a big presence at Devoxx 2011 as witnessed by the number of sessions this year given by leading JavaFX movers and shakers.

    “JavaFX 2.0 -- A Java Developer's Guide” by Java Champions Stephen Chin and Peter Pilgrim

    “JavaFX 2.0 Hands On” by Jasper Potts and Richard Bair

    “Animation Bringing your User Interfaces to Life” by Michael Heinrichs and John Yoong (JavaFX development team)

    “Complete Guide to Writing Custom Bindings in JavaFX 2.0” by Michael Heinrichs (JavaFX development team)

    “Java Rich Clients with JavaFX 2.0” by Jasper Potts and Richard Bair

    “JavaFX Properties & Bindings for Experts” (and those who want to become experts) by Michael Heinrichs (JavaFX development team)

    “JavaFX Under the Hood” by Richard Bair

    “JavaFX Open Mic” with Jasper Potts and Richard Bair

With the release of JavaFX 2.0 and Oracle’s move towards an open development model with an open bug database already created, it’s a great time for developers to take the JavaFX plunge.

One Devoxx attendee, Mark Stephens, a developer at IDRsolutions blogged about a problem he was having setting up JavaFX on NetBeans to work on his Mac. He wrote:

“I’ve tried desperate measures (I even read and reread the instructions) but it did not help. Luckily, I am at Devoxx at the moment and there seem to be a lot of JavaFX gurus here (and it is running on all their Macs). So I asked them… It turns out that sometimes the software does not automatically pickup the settings like it should do if you give it the JavaFX SDK path. The solution is actually really simple (isn’t it always once you know). Enter these values manually and it will work.”

He simply entered certain values and his problem was solved. He thanked Java Champion Stephen Chin, “for a great talk at Devoxx and putting me out of my misery.”

JavaFX in Java Magazine

Over in the November/December 2011 issue of Java Magazine, Oracle’s Simon Ritter, well known for his creative Java inventions at JavaOne, has an article up titled “JavaFX and Swing Integration” in which he shows developers how to use the power of JavaFX to migrate Swing interfaces to JavaFX. The consensus among JavaFX experts is that JavaFX is the next step in the evolution of Java as a rich client platform.

In the same issue Java Champion and JavaFX maven James Weaver has an article, “Using Transitions for Animation in JavaFX 2.0”. In addition, Oracle’s Vice President of Java Client Development, Nandini Ramani, provides the keys to unlock the mysteries of JavaFX 2.0 in her Java Magazine interview.

Look for the JavaFX community to grow and flourish in coming years.