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Comments: 185 +- Technology: Sun Releases JavaFX on Thursday December 04 2008, @05:50PM
Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday December 04 2008, @05:50PM
from the does-it-roll-off-the-tongue-or-not dept.
from the does-it-roll-off-the-tongue-or-not dept.
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ink writes "Sun released JavaFX 1.0 today, in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies. It is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code (in the form of On2 licensed codecs). The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence. The development kit currently consists of the base run-time, a NetBeans/Eclipse plug-in and a set of artifact exporters for Adobe CS 3&4." An anonymous reader adds a link to several tutorials accompanying the new release.
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Probably Also Contending with OpenLaszlo (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I will throw out there a heads up to folks about OpenLaszlo [openlaszlo.org] which is the "run-anywhere, no-lock-in rich Internet platform. Period."
Unfortunately it still has a massive adoption curve ahead of it so maybe there's no reason to list it as a contender. While there are neat demos [openlaszlo.org], a few companies have employed it: Wal-Mart, Pandora even MSN's music service.
*sigh* I wonder if this means Sun is going to pull out of Orbit [slashdot.org] and come up with some J2ME version of JavaFX?
Like always, I welcome the competition, diversity and options this brings while I cringe at the thought of yet another schism in the open source community.
Re:Probably Also Contending with OpenLaszlo (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I will throw out there a heads up to folks about OpenLaszlo [openlaszlo.org] which is the "run-anywhere, no-lock-in rich Internet platform. Period."
That's not entirely true. OpenLaszlo relies on Flash to display video, and Flash is not a no-lock-in platform. You cannot redistribute Flash, or use it in a whole host of applications without licensing it from Adobe.
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Re:Probably Also Contending with OpenLaszlo (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Probably Also Contending with OpenLaszlo (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenLaszlo compiles to either flash or DHTML. Its not a Flash lock-in.
I'd be surprised if it were possible to display streaming video in just DHTML.
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Re:Probably Also Contending with OpenLaszlo (Score:5, Funny)
well, with html 5 we all will have the video tag [w3schools.com] so there's a solution in sight - hopefully!
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can DHTML display video? the GP poster talked about video specifically.
Re:Probably Also Contending with OpenLaszlo (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? You can't redistribute any application without a license unless it's public domain. That's copyright. GPL is a distribution license.
As far as Adobe's Flash, they have an easy website form to obtain a standard redistribution license:
http://www.adobe.com/products/players/fpsh_distribution1.html [adobe.com]
It's suitable for distributing the player on installation media, for distributing the player on a whole network, or for distributing with other software through a website you manage. It pretty much covers the bases for intended uses of Flash Player for an end-user.
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JavaFX on Android (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'd really like to see is JavaFX running on Android. I saw a presentation from Java One where it showed a JavaFX app running on Android. Has anyone been able to duplicate this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYy4j9x2Mi4 [youtube.com]
I've played around with JavaFX and it seems pretty nice. I've been able to write small widgets with it. Whether it can take on Silverlight and Flash still remains to be seem. What's awesome is that JavaFX has the support of Java's rich API and 3rd-party libraries (you can easily import them into a JavaFX program).
Also if JavaFX apps can run properly on Android or the iPhone, I think that would also help it be more successful.
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JavaFX Mobile (Score:2)
*sigh* I wonder if this means Sun is going to pull out of Orbit [slashdot.org] and come up with some J2ME version of JavaFX?
I don't know about Orbit, but a JavaME version of JavaFX [sun.com] is definitely in the works. And to clarify, JavaFX Mobile will be provided to handset manufacturers as a binary distribution, [cnet.com] for which Sun will charge a per-unit royalty.
Not really, no. (Score:4, Informative)
Laszlo is a Generator for a few things - which also include Flash, nonetheless. Much like the old Macromedia Flash Generator, the Ming Libraries or the Macromedia Laszlo Rippoff 'Flex'.
JavaFX on the other hand is an all-out leveraging of the Java VM for RIAs, something Laszlo can't offer. It's its own VM (naturally) plus a toolkit for building content and applications. While there are overlaps between the two, JavaFX is clearly aimed at Flash - the biggest advancement being a much more streamlines deployment of the Java VM (I just installed it with a sinlge click of a mouse, supported by some nifty Ajax widget that streamlined the process even more).
And, contrary to Silverlight, Java actually has a chance to dethrone Flash, as it is the most mature cross plattform available, despite Flash being the most widespread plattform in general. I'm really interested in how this will play out. ... And am downloading the free JavaFX IDE as I'm typing this. If it doesn't get in my way building RIAs, I will probably never purchase a Flash IDE licence again.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The big problem with JavaFX is that, apparently, it requires a full Java VM on the client to work. This is about 15Mb to download. For comparison, Silverlight 2.0 is ~4Mb, and Flash is less than 1Mb. And yes, it is a big deal. Today, for anything other than Flash, you have to assume that the client won't have the plugin/runtime installed by default, so the download has to be as small as possible.
Re:Not really, no. (Score:5, Informative)
The download for Java *is* as small as possible. If you go to Sun's download page and select the "Windows Kernel Installation", the installer is 0.20 MB
It then dynamically downloads components from the network as required.
More information about this here [sun.com].
Don't ask me why (I guess it's an experimental feature they're prepping for the Java 7 release) but for the time being you have to access it via Sun's developer site [sun.com] rather than the consumer java.com one. Hmmm.
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SO confusing.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No shockwave for Linux, Flash 64 gets released JUST for Linux, Sun open-sources Java, but now no JavaFX for Linux...
Can't we all just get along? My head is spinning at all the end-user requests for their intarwebs to work correctly. I guess it's just too much to ask for a real, open standard that just works (like...umm...html?)
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I haven't tried this yet, but it was the same problem with the preview SDK. There was no linux version, but you could get the Mac version running on Linux:
http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/2008/08/05/watch_javafx_sdk_run_on_linux.html [weiqigao.com]
I'm assuming the same method can be used to run the SDK on Linux. I'm going to try this out now.
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No dice. Windows comes as exe, and Mac as dmg. Nice job, Sun. I'm going to see if I can get to run somehow, though.
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Wow...you can't even be bothered to type "Linux dmg" into Google...how lazy are you?
(In case you really are that lazy, the answer is mount -t hfs -o loop file.dmg /path/to/mount)
JavaFX 1.0 SDK running on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
I was able to get the SDK to run on Linux. Full details here [vivin.net]. Please don't kill my box :)
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Linux support is 'coming' (Score:4, Informative)
From the link:
"We are going to support Linux and Solaris. We love both operating systems....we are actively working on it right now. We have it in our continuous build system."
and
"So why didn't we ship for Linux and Solaris in 1.0 along with Mac & Windows?
Simple. It's not ready yet. Certain features are there but other features are broken or not performing well enough. In particular video and graphics hardware acceleration have historically been tricky to implement properly on Linux and Solaris, as users of native apps for those operating systems know all too well. But we are working on it and will ship it."
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I've been developing in mostly java for over a decade and tend to agree with most of Sun's decisions, but this is weak.
If the product wasn't ready for all the target platforms than the product wasn't ready.
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Re:Linux support is 'coming' (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux and Solaris count towards less than 5% of the market. Sun did the smart thing by bringing it to the mass OS market, instead of delaying it. If they delayed it, they'd have lost their window of entry, and maybe lost the market entirely to Adobe AIR.
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Re: (Score:2)
Any time new features are implemented across all major browsers (yay CSS 2.1 in IE8) it makes me quite happy, as I'm just waiting to see how much functionality we can eek out of the web before the entire effort splinters apart into such closed non-standard vendor-specific solutions like Flash, Silverlight, JavaFX, etc.
Now that CSS support is maturing, if we could just get SVG and a standard audio/video tag with Free codecs, I think we would be OK for the most common use cases.
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I guess it's too much to ask that you click on the link in the story that takes you to Sun's blog where they explain that Linux and Solaris versions are being released?
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I wonder if those versions will be released before Duke Nukem Forever. I heard that was going to be released, too.
Just what the web needs (Score:4, Interesting)
Cross platform? (Score:2)
It is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code (in the form of On2 licensed codecs). The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence.
So... cross-platform means PC and Mac? Or just PC?
Only no JavaFX for developers (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though it is still a shame,
you CAN view JavaFX used on webpages. It seams to work just like java-applets, only nicer to look at. (Sadly it also has the same slow loading as applets)
Example: http://javafx.com/samples/StopWatch/index.html [javafx.com]
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Applets slow starting was supposedly fixed in Java 6u10, if you have an older Java install the latest (http://www.java.com) and try again.
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Wow.... I gave up after a full minute, using Safari 3 on OS X Tiger. Never did load anything. I think the stopwatch was me counting time go by, waiting for this demo to load.
It does work on linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Come back forwards on that reversal again...? (Score:5, Funny)
So if we have an absence of a lack, does that mean there is a Linux and/or Solaris release? :-P
And yes, I don't think I'm not being overly pedantic in noting the presence of an absence of a lack of internal bouyancy in the summary, since that's a term whose inapplicability wouldn't be not out of place in this sentence.
Flash and Silverlight the target? (Score:2, Insightful)
Flash and Silverlight? Yeah, right. Sun knows that Yet Another Web Development Framework isn't going to take over the desktop. This is a blatant attempt to stop Android taking over the mobile phone space. Android added native media playback classes and a bunch of other stuff to the J2ME mix, the HTC G1 was a surprise hit, and a whole bunch of cell phone manufacturers have now announced Android phones - not J2ME phones. Sun is seeing its lock on the mobile phone application market disappearing overnight, and
Re:Flash and Silverlight the target? (Score:5, Informative)
Android - Mobile phone stack, making heavy use of Java technology. While Sun's not directly involved, Jonathan Schwartz has spoken highly of it.
JavaFX - Web multimedia/interactivity stack, similar to Flash and Silverlight.
The two are not competitors. Sun is not pushing JavaFX to compete with Android any more than Microsoft is pushing Silverlight to destroy Windows CE.
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Re:Flash and Silverlight the target? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it so difficult to understand that Google's Dalvik - an implementation of Java being used for free by mobile phone manufacturers - is a direct threat to Sun's J2ME? This is not some secret conspiracy theory - professional business analysts, who actually make a living from watching these kinds of things, have noticed the same thing.
"However, Google's move threatens Sun's business strategy, Mazzocchi said. He believes that Sun sees a bright future in the mobile market and hopes to earn revenue off the
Holy Halleluja! Unbelievable! (Score:5, Insightful)
They've done it! They have *finally* done it. Beyond all hype, potential vaporware and marketing bullcrap they have - for once - actually pulled through with RIAs. People this is the first time in history that Sun has actually pulled through with implementing a piece of Java in a form that Java was initially meant for: A cross plattform rich & powerfull client enviroment. Finally Java and its VM have stepped up and entered the ring with Flash!
Only intially releasing for OS X and Windows is a large downside, as it will get negative votes from opinion leaders in the field, but the simple fact that they pulled through and didn't stop at 20% with some half-assed crappy Java Media Framework or some other piece of sh*t they've released ever since Flash took the helm at rich clients 10 years ago is a very big supprising plus!!! And the release-website [javafx.com] (why the f*ck isn't this, the most important prime sorce even linked in the GP metaarticle???) doesn't even look like total crap.
If they actually manage to pull through with a broad parallel release policy for this in the near future, manage to reduce JFX deployment to zero-fuss Flash-style and release the java-based FOSS tools and IDEs for JFX as announced a year ago, we will - for the first time in the history of the web - see a true competitor to Flash rise. This is good news in so many ways I can't even describe. If Sun plays its cards right and continues applying common sense and not screwing around this time and Adobe isn't on its toes, we will have a fully free open source rich client platform in just a few years and Flash will be history. Yay! Go, Sun, go!
I can't tell you how much I and many other professional Flash developers have waited for this moment for the last 8 years.
JavaFX.com is down... (Score:2, Informative)
...and has been for at least 20-30 minutes. I guess they didn't expect anyone to actually check out the site.
Sun are so...enterprise (Score:3, Interesting)
button to find out."
Combine that with the 2nd-tier graphic design and interactivity going on all over the place, and it feels sort of like something that a) isn't going to win over the designer crowd and b) WHY on earth would Linux fans look at this as anything other than a snub? Sigh. (Anyway, I've downloaded all three packages, and I'll give it a go...)
Fail! (Score:3, Informative)
I tried the demo over at javafx.com and I got two security warnings (they use self-signed certificates) and one popup with a EULA. And the demo have some serious usability and display issues.
I love Java and it pays my bills but Sun really have a long way to go to reach the acceptance level of Flash.
Talk about delusions of grandeur (Score:3, Insightful)
Not supporting linux and solaris, which have less than 5% of the desktop market, is not notable and is, in fact, good business sense.
Alpha quality (Score:3, Interesting)
1. It needs to be an order of magnitude faster to load. I don't have to wait 20 seconds for Flash movies to start playing.
2. It needs to not require a new runtime, with two nuisance security/license agreement dialogs.
3. It needs to not crash Firefox.
Re:sorry (Score:5, Informative)
On2 [wikipedia.org] is the company that provides the video/audio codecs for video in the Flash plugin. (i.e. The technology used by sites like Youtube.) The inclusion of these codecs in JavaFX means that JavaFX will be able to play movies intended for a Flash player.
In other words, JavaFX is a scripting language for graphics. Similar in principle to Flash. The download gives developers the necessary libraries and viewers to develop JavaFX code. (Including plugins for your favorite IDE.) Not sure what the Adobe CS stuff is about.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have sort of a 'meh' reaction to it. It's not that the technology isn't cool, but it's a solution looking for a problem. Much like Silverlight, but without the antitrust practices to force it into use. In particular, its intended use as a platform on top of applets bothers me. Applets died out for a lot of good reasons. There's no good argument to be made for their revival. Especially with Flash and/or DHTML providing nearly all the advantages of Applets. Just let sleeping dogs
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Sun released JavaFX 1.0 today, in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies.
JavaFX, a technology by sun which will let developers write "rich internet applications" using a Java-esq language which has been in development for quite some time now has finally been released, joining rather late to the game. Also it requires it's own plugin which will be a hefty barrier to entry.
It is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code (in the form of On2 licensed codecs).
So, it will include Audio/Video support, and it is using codecs from On2 [on2.com]. I don't think that this means the codecs are free in any sense of the term, just that Sun is paying the cost of licensing these codecs fo
Re:Existing plugin (Score:5, Informative)
It is. This is really a set of libraries on top of the existing Java runtime that support the JavaFX scripting framework.
I'm sure they will once the technology has been shaken out a bit. Sun tends to be cautious about making changes to the core APIs.
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"JavaSE 6 update 10 gives developers the ability to create draggable applets which the user can then save on their desktop to use later."
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These things are targeted at developer a lot more than they are at end user. So the difference? You can use your java background and existing java code (to some extent). More or less the same use case as Silverlight (except silverlight is a subset-like version of the already relatively used WPF framework...not sure if JavaFX has its root in something thats already adopted)