Jim Weaver’s Rich-Client Java Blog

Brief JavaFX 2.0 Video Interview from JavaOne Latin America

Here's a brief (five-minute) JavaFX 2.0 video interview that I did from JavaOne Latin America 2011 last week.

Regards,

Jim Weaver
jim.weaver @ javafxpert.com 

Thanks William Antônio Siqueira for Translating the Return of Rich-Client Java Presentation to Portuguese

Just a quick note of thanks to William Antônio Siqueira for translating The Return of Rich-Client Java presentation that I gave at JavaOne Latin America on 06-Dec-2011 in São Paulo, Brazil to Portuguese.  The presentation engine was developed in Java/JavaFX, and uses FXML for expressing the content.  If you have a Windows machine (hopefully a very temporary restriction) please navigate to the Return of Rich-Client Java Home Page and try it out via the Java Web Start link.  If your locale is set to Portuguese/Brazil, you'll see William's handiwork.

Regards,
Jim Weaver

The "Return of Rich-Client Java" Presentation at JavaOne Latin America

I'm looking forward to presenting The Return of Rich-Client Java at JavaOne Latin America on 06-Dec-2011 in São Paulo, Brazil.  The presentation engine was developed in Java/JavaFX, and uses FXML for expressing the content.  If you have a Windows machine (hopefully a very temporary restriction) please navigate to the Return of Rich-Client Java Home Page and try it out via the Java Web Start link.

Regards,
Jim Weaver

TweetBrowser: A JavaFX 2.0 Example App

For an upcoming article, I plan to walk through a JavaFX 2.0 example application that I've named TweetBrowser.  This application leverages the Twitter REST API to provide a browser-style interface to the user for navigating tweets.  I'd appreciate any input that you have on the application, so if you have a Windows machine (hopefully a very temporary restriction) please navigate to the TweetBrowser Home Page and try it out via the Java Web Start link.

Regards,
Jim Weaver

EarthCubeFX on JavaFX 2.0 from OSCON/Java 2011 Keynote (w/code download)

During the JavaFX keynote at OSCON/Java a few days ago I demonstrated the the EarthCubeFX application ported to JavaFX 2.0.  In the session I promised to make the code available on my blog, so here is a link from which you can download the EarthCubeX project (for NetBeans IDE).  Some helpful tips:

• After downloading the ZIP file, expand the project into a directory of your choice.  
• Start NetBeans, and select the File -> Open Project menu.From the Open Project dialog box, 
• Navigate to your chosen directory and open the EarthCubeX project.  If you receive a message dialog stating that the jfxrt.jar file can't be found, click the Resolve button and navigate to the rt/lib folder subordinate to where you installed the JavaFX 2.0 SDK. 
• Note: You can obtain the NetBeans IDE from the NetBeans site.

Also, although JavaFX 2.0 for Mac OS will be released after JavaFX 2.0 for Windows is released, it doesn't seem to be far behind, as this video of EarthCube on an early access version of JavaFX for Mac OS demonstrates.

Regards,

Jim Weaver

Eye on Visage: Compiler Preview #1 Available

The Visage Programming Language is moving forward, with Compiler Preview #1 available now.  This preview features Default Properties, which create a simplified syntax that makes it easier to read nested data structures.  A logo has also been chosen for the project as well.  According to Stephen Chin, founder and leader of the Visage Project:  

"After a lot of searching (and some failed attempts at contacting artists for rights), I ended up with a classical art piece.  A painting by Leonardo da Vinci, La Scapigliata (The Lady of the Dishevelled Hair), was my choice.  Leonardo accentuated the face in this portrait, which seems fitting given the focus of our project.  It also is mostly monochromatic, which should make it easy to incorporate in different mediums."

Here are the very straightforward instructions for installing Visage Compiler Preview #1.  Please try it out and supply feedback to the Visage Developers Mailing List.

Regards,

Jim Weaver

The Visage Programming Language: Expressionism meets UI Development

Visage Sur Fond Vert ("face on a green background") is a painting by Henry Matisse, whose mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.  In this post I'd like to help bring to light Visage, the expressive programming language for creating user interfaces. 

Two things that hooked me on JavaFX were:

1. the promise of getting rich-client Java back, and 
2. the ease of expressing user interfaces.  

The JavaFX-related announcements at JavaOne 2010 were bittersweet for me.  The [extremely] sweet part is that making the JavaFX platform directly accessible to Java will greatly increase adoption of JavaFX and help us realize hook #1 above.  The bitter part is that Oracle isn't moving the JavaFX Script language forward, which is on the surface a huge blow to hook #2.

Expressing user interfaces in code has always been an awkward act, to which many tools and techniques have been applied.  These run the gamut of expressing the appearance of the UI in XML and its behavior in a programming language, to using GUI builder tools that generate code.  Expressing user interfaces is a sweet spot for JavaFX Script due to its declarative syntax for expressing the UI containment hierarchy, including components and their layout.  Features baked into JavaFX Script such as binding, triggers and sequences are conducive to expressing user interfaces as well. 

In the interest of moving JavaFX Script forward, Stephen Chin recently announced the Visage language and associated open source project.  Stephen has had many years of experience leading open source projects and communities, and I am very pleased to see that he is leading this charge.  The Open JavaFX Compiler will be used as a starting point for Visage, and the plans are to continue evolving it.  Here are some of the goals of the Visage project from Stephen's blog post:

• Provide a JavaFX Java API Binding – One of the most innovative parts of the JavaFX platform was the language, and it is what all JavaFX applications are written in today.  Our number 1 project goal is to make sure that developers can continue to write declarative code and easily port over their existing applications.
• Enhance the Visage Language – The language syntax remains largely unchanged since the 1.0 release of JavaFX.  We plan on making numerous improvements that will be beneficial to UI programmers and make common patterns easier to code.
• Support for Other Platforms – For the Visage language to thrive, it has to be a general purpose UI programming language.  Some other platforms that are in great need of a UI DSL include HTML5, Flex, and Android.
• Language Standardization – We would like to see the Visage language be made an official standard with possibly multiple implementations.

Please join me in congratulating/thanking Stephen, as well as getting involved in the Visage open source project. 

On a temporal note, Oracle's Richard Bair and Jai Suri will discuss JavaFX 2.0 at the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group on 5.Oct.2010 at 6p PT.  You can attend in-person or online, and it will be a very informative session on the future of JavaFX.

Regards,

Jim Weaver

 

And the winner [of the JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge] is...

In October 2009 I announced the JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge, which was to:

"Create an application in JavaFX that exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA (rich internet application)".

I am pleased to announce that the winning entry, the Beechcraft Cargoloader, was submitted by Abhilshit Soni.  Here's a screen capture of Abhi's entry:

Abhilshit Soni is a 24 year old Software Engineer living in Mumbai, India. He holds a Bachelor of Technology in BioInformatics and is currently working with Zycus as a Software Engineer in the Product Engineering Team. He has been involved in developing web-based enterprise applications based on Java EE and Spring technologies for almost three years.

About Abhi's Application

According to Abhi, his Beechcraft Loader application "tries to solve a typical engineering problem of loading cargo containers into a Cargo aircraft. It needs a proper way in which your aircraft should be loaded with containers so that the resultant center of gravity of the aircraft is stable. For big cargo carriers like Boeing 747-400F or Airbus A380 there are set of calculations defined in their weight and balance handbook which are always calculated to ensure that center of gravity of the aircraft is and will be stable in all the conditions.  This application tries to calculate the same for a relatively smaller Aircraft called BeechCraft 1900C by the Hawker-Beechcraft Corporation. The cargo aircraft manufacturer describes the operational center of gravity limits (varying based on the total aircraft weight) for a particular aircraft which can be viewed by the  "Aircraft weight" vs "center of gravity" chart. The aim is to load aircraft in such a way that your current center of gravity falls between these operational limits, otherwise your aircraft is either nose heavy or tail heavy. This application considers only Beechcraft 1900C for cargo loading with a specific set of containers . All the equations and Aircraft master data are obtained from Chapter 7 of the FAA Aircraft Weight and Balance Handbook. The application currently does not cover all the functional use cases, like calculating lateral Center of Gravity and many other functional validations which are out of scope as of now".

Instructions for Using the Application

You can take the application for a test flight via Java Web Start by visiting Abhi's blog.  Here are some pre-flight instructions from Abhi:

1. Drag a cargo container from the cargo panel on the left side.
   
2. Place it on any of the sections on bechcraft 1900C main deck in the upper center.
   
3. See the change in center of gravity in the data table.
   
4. Also see the change in weight v/s CG chart, and the weight coverage pie chart, in the lower right and left respectively.
   
5. To remove a dropped container double click it.
   
6. Change the container's position by by dragging from old position to new position.
   
7. To reset the plan click 'Reset Container' button on the toolbar in the center just below the Main deck.
   
8. To enable/disable Drag and Drop animation toggle 'Disable Animation' button on the  toolbar in the center just below the Main deck.
   
9. To quick view/hide cargo weights toggle the "View Weights " button on the toolbar in the center just below the Main deck
   
10. Click on Weight Coverage chart or Weight vs CG chart to get a larger image.
    
11. The yellow dot in the Weight v/s CG chart represents the current center of gravity, and the polygons drawn in the chart are the operational limits provided by the aircraft manufacturer.
    
12. Check out Help and About buttons for more info about the application.

Closing Thoughts

Each of the participants were asked how their entry exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA.  Here is Abhi's response: 

"To an end user the enterprise RIA is more about the way user sees the information shown in the application. All that an end user expects from an enterprise  RIA is to access the information in the fastest and coolest looking way. The definition of coolest may be interpreted as drag drop interfaces, animation and effects, different data viewing formats, but not at the cost of performance. By using JavaFX I have tried to achieve the same to an extent by adding drag-drop spot data update in multiple formats like grid and charts, and also onclick zooms, animations and effects with performance as priority."

Also, per the contest rules, Abhi has submitted the source code of this application to the JFXtras open source project in the samples repository.

Congratulations to Abhi, and thanks to everyone who submitted an entry to this RIA Exemplar Challenge!

Regards,

Jim Weaver

Blame it on RIA

If you've followed this blog, you know that I'm passionate about rich internet application (RIA) development, particularly rich-client Java development (i.e. the client runs on the JVM, is visually pleasing, intuitive and responsive).

Readers of this blog also know that I view JavaFX and Java SE 6u10 as the principal pieces of the RIA puzzle that will bring rich-client Java back [we almost had it in 1996... I'll spare you the rant just this once :-)].  With JavaOne around the corner, it should come as no surprise that I'll be presenting again on JavaFX, joining the ranks of others passionate about rich-client Java.

For a great summary of the upcoming JavaFX sessions, see Stephen Chin's JavaOne Expert RIA Track post.  By the way, I'll be presenting with Stephen in the Pro JavaFX: Developing Enterprise Applications session, with Johan Vos in the Visualization of Geomaps and Topic Maps with JavaFX session, and will also discuss Creating a 3D UI for an Enterprise Application with JavaFX.

During my presentations, I'll announce the winner of the RIA Exemplar Challenge as well.  I hope to see you there, and please do come up and say hi after the presentations!

Regards,

Jim Weaver

What posts would you like to see about HTML5?

Now that HTML5 is coming of age, I've been exploring synergies between JavaFX and HTML5 in order to leverage the strengths of both.  Are there areas of HTML5, like WebSockets for example, that you'd like to see posted on this blog?

Regards,

Jim Weaver