Bruno Ghisi's Blog

Elucidating JavaFX (Including JavaFX Mobile)

I have seen a lot of people asking questions about JavaFX Mobile and I decided to make a short directly entry about it and about JavaFX as a whole.

JavaFX was announced some months ago at JavaOne 2007. As you have heard, "it is a new family of Sun products based on Java technology and targeted at the high impact, rich content market". The first two products are JavaFX Script and JavaFX Mobile.

JavaFX Script "is a highly productive scripting language that enables content developers to create rich media and content for deployment on Java environments". JavaFX Script comes from Chris Oliver's project, which, initially, was called F3 (Form Follows Function). Take a look at Project OpenJFX for more information around JavaFX Script, you can find good tutorials, demos and discussions. You definitely should get started with JavaFX Script. I did and what I can say is that it is pretty cool! You can get Netbeans IDE and install the plugins or you can also try it a little bit with the JavaFXPad. I loved the way you can experiment the language with this last tool, because everything you type into the code editor is displayed in the canvas, so interactive! Another cool stuff is that JavaFX puglin for NetBeans 6.0 will come with a JavaFXPad integration! Also, to get started, do not forget to take a look in the language reference.

JavaFX Mobile "is a complete, pre-integrated software system for advanced mobile devices designed to enable developers to author rich, high-impact content and network-based services". JavaFX Mobile was built around open source technologies (Linux and Java) and comes from SavaJe Mobile Plataform, which was presented at JavaOne 2006 in the Jasper S20 phone.

So, how things get connected? JavaFX Mobile will run JavaFX applications, as well as keep supporting Java applications. In the near future, OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) will be able to put JavaFX Mobile into their devices (and set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc...). According to Jacob Lehrbaum in a recent podcast (posted here at Mobile & Embedded Community previously), Sun is working with handset manufacturers and mobile operators partners to deliver the first devices with JavaFX Mobile until the end of 2008. A lot of details around it are still being worked, but the fact is that we have good news to keep looking in Java for the mobile future: we are working to reduce fragmentation - MSA is coming in this way, take a look in my second post for more information about it - and JavaFX product family is coming to help us creating rich content and improving user experiences. Let's stay tuned, things are very very promising!

Thanks,

Bruno Ghisi

Comments

• Hello Kenny,
  OEMs will be able to ship JavaFX Mobile into their handsets. JavaFX Script will be able to run in the JavaFX Mobile, but a lot of details are being working out. I have posted a last update about it some time ago, but as soon as I get more information, I write post in this blog. Take a look in this thread, people have asked almost the same thing.
  Cheers,
  Bruno

  Posted by: brunogh on December 17, 2007 at 03:06 AM

• hi,Bruno . Is that possible we are able to put JavaFX Mobile into our devices in the near future? Could you tell me how to enable javaFX to runs on set-top boxes?

  Posted by: kenny_wong on December 16, 2007 at 06:34 PM

• Recently i have heard numerous opinions of JavaFX Mobile getting more and more popular. I think it will grow popular soon.

  USA homes

  Posted by: frida1 on October 17, 2007 at 05:21 AM

• Another cool podcast with Jacob can be found at Innovation Blog. As he says, "we are going to continue to support standard Java ME applications, that we call midlets". ;)
  
  Thanks,
  Bruno Ghisi

  Posted by: brunogh on September 03, 2007 at 09:30 AM

• It has been published another good article to learn JavaFX Script, take a look: Learning JavaFX Script, Part 1: An Introduction to JavaFX Script for Java Programmers.

  Posted by: brunogh on August 02, 2007 at 07:23 AM

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.