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Java Programming Graphics Software Sun Microsystems

Sun Releases JavaFX 185

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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Sun Releases JavaFX

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  • by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@@@gmail...com> on Thursday December 04, 2008 @05:51PM (#25995755) Journal

    ... in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies

    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.

    • by ink ( 4325 ) * on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:13PM (#25996071) Homepage

      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.

    • i am excited about XML UI programming languages, so i've been doing my part by porting (and supporting) the OpenLaszlo concepts, which are really fun and easy to learn, by the way) to other languages. Although OpenLaszlo is still the first thing i reach for when doing web apps, I'd love to see a Laszlo-Inspired layer over every interface system out there, JavaFX, certainly included in that
    • JavaFX on Android (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vivin ( 671928 ) <vivin,paliath&gmail,com> on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:20PM (#25996149) Homepage Journal

      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.

      • If JavaFx's footprint is smaller than Flash, I'd see a version on the G1 sooner than you think.

        .

        I found the G1's paltry 70MB of usable space for apps crippling, especially when I'm uploading IMAP mail that's in the multiple MB range. Webapps is the future on the G1 unless they allow on-card loading of apps.

        • by glop ( 181086 )

          Can't you just log in as root and create a couple symlinks to go around that.
          Of course, after that you have to leave the card in at all times to avoid weird errors. But that seems a nice trade off.

    • *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)

      by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:58PM (#25997319)

      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.

      • 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)

          by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Friday December 05, 2008 @04:35AM (#26000537)

          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.

  • SO confusing.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheDarkener ( 198348 ) on Thursday December 04, 2008 @05:59PM (#25995855) Homepage

    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?)

    • by vivin ( 671928 )

      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.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:24PM (#25996219)

      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."

      • by LDoggg_ ( 659725 )
        They shouldn't have shipped it at all then.

        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.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by jasonmanley ( 921037 )
          I think that it comes down to a business decision. Creating brand awareness, gaining market penetration etc. In these markets it seems that "days count". Get the "acronym", or prduct name or whatever out there - create a buzz - get some interest and momentum behind the idea and add features as you go. I for one applaud Sun's open source efforts and don't hold this against them. They are inventing / tweaking a very difficult business model by releasing free software and getting support / client / business /
        • by A12m0v ( 1315511 ) on Thursday December 04, 2008 @08:13PM (#25997437) Journal

          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.

          • Maybe, but as every year passes I get more and more sure that Sun is trying to backtrack on passing off Solaris and OpenSolaris as a desktop alternatives.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by hotfireball ( 948064 )

            Linux and Solaris count towards less than 5% of the market.

            Right. A *desktop* market. Actually much less than 5%. It is about less than 3% for both.

          • But they are alienating their main clients: Solaris users.

            For somebody that has made a living from Solaris for several years, the message could not be more ominous: don't use Solaris, not even ourselves can be arsed to support it.

            Nice one Sun, nice one.

          • Which market? The market *that counts* at the moment is the pre-existing Java developer market. Including mac users, a figure I'm plucking out of the air, the Unix user base of java developers is possibly 40%, or perhaps more.

            Development shops aren't going to ramp up development using a 1.0 product if their coders are in mixed environments and have to run FX in a VM, under wine or dual boot. e.g. "this sounds dandy but does it run in Ubuntu?" (Assuming, of course, the decision makers aren't hanging out on t

          • by einer ( 459199 )

            I disagree. Linux (and BSD) users are the early adopters and the ones who encourage their Windows using friends to use better alternatives like Firefox. Also, Linux users tend to be the first ones to develop on new languages and platforms. Less apps, less JVM's in the browser, less exposure, fewer early adopters excited about the product.

            As a Java developer and Linux user, I won't be using this and I can garauntee that not a single one of my Windows using co-workers has any desire to install another brow

          • by ebuck ( 585470 )
            You seem to think that doing things in parallel guarantees delay of the product that hits the majority of the masses.
    • by HRbnjR ( 12398 )

      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.

    • 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?

      • 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?

        I wonder if those versions will be released before Duke Nukem Forever. I heard that was going to be released, too.

    • My guess is that Sun is the only game in town for really "getting along" in all platforms (Sun, Windows, Linux, Macs and BSDs).

  • by mtarnovan ( 1337149 ) on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:22PM (#25996181)
    ... another RIA platform. Only this one doesn't have a userbase yet and I don't think it'll have one to speak of in the near future; it is Windows and Mac OS only (though Sun promises that Linux and Solaris support is underway http://blogs.sun.com/javafx/entry/a_word_on_linux_and [sun.com]). Microsoft has been pushing Silverlight hard and still has only about 30% market penetration in the US (they claim 50% mp in 'some countries' - I'm very curious which countries are these: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx [microsoft.com]). With Flash+Flex having a comfortable user base of some 90+%, let's not even begin to compare Microsoft's vs Sun's power to push stuff to the desktops of the masses, it's not even funny.
  • 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?

  • by Lobais ( 743851 ) on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:45PM (#25996497)

    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]

    • That page actually crashed Firefox for me. Wasn't the slow loading applets the whole reason people went to Flash in the first place?
    • by Nicopa ( 87617 )

      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.

    • 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.

      • I had no problem on a G4 PPC running webkit and Leopard. Performance was rather good for my computer slow by today's standards.
    • Yea, I tried a few samples, first it prompted me to trust a unverified certificate and give unknown code...how did it put it...full access to my computer.

      Then it was so slow safari asked me if I wanted to kill it.

      Oh yea, this is a flash killer.

    • by karstux ( 681641 )

      Loaded forever and didn't show anything, even though I specifically installed the newest Java update 11 for this.

      If that "experience" and the sibling responses to your post are anything to go by, this won't have much of a future...

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:46PM (#25996511)
    what is this linux support all you frothing nerds are screaming about? I just ran the "web start" examples in linux just fine, in fact FX runs on the standard JRE. Ok, there's no sdk for linux yet, FINE, just cut them some slack, for christ sake.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Moochman ( 54872 )

        Yeah, the video quality is good... can't say I'm in love with the bundled player component though... The play/pause button is a wierd target to hit (only works when you get it in the middle) and the jog bar doesn't let you click anywhere in it to skip ahead. I know I'm being picky, but something that will be used this much deserves to be gotten right!

    • Just played a game of brick breaker on Ubuntu. It's Java folks, it runs fine. Nice to see a simple game not eating my CPU like Flash does, too.

  • by Odin's Raven ( 145278 ) on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:50PM (#25996565)

    The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence.

    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.


    • The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence.

      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.

      The lack of a release is also a notable absence.

      Also, you misspelled "buoyancy".

      Please don't think me pedantic. I was worried that your poor spelling would keep people from understanding whatever the hell it was that you were trying to say.

  • 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: (Score:2, Interesting)

      I'm sorry, what the fuck do Flash, Silverlight and Java FX have to do with Android?

      Mods, mods, mods.. please guys, wake up.

      This is a blatant attempt to stop Android taking over the mobile phone space.

      Unwrap some of that tinfoil so you can talk, and tell us WHY.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by chrb ( 1083577 )

        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

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday December 04, 2008 @09:58PM (#25998357)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by chrb ( 1083577 )

        Android includes its own "JVM" - except it isn't really a JVM, but a "Dalvik" VM that interprets Dalvik bytecode translated directly from Java bytecode - the end result is the same. The Dalvik VM, and its new classes (which incidentally include media playback codecs, one of the big JavaFX announcements) are a direct competitor to J2ME. If Google succeeds in having every phone manufacturer shipping Dalvik+Google classes, and takes the developer mindshare with its App Store, then J2ME is effectively dead.

        If J

    • See my post somewhere above. Unless Android has a slick way to show multimedia, or their own version of JavaFX, JavaFX is the way to go unless they add more on-board memory to devices like the G1. I'm already at 10MB left of onboard memory on my G1 due to local mail and apps!

      But I do agree this a bandaid to save J2ME--Android did it the right way such that J2ME should evolve to something similar to Android (won't happen due to the JCP).

    • by bjourne ( 1034822 ) on Friday December 05, 2008 @03:10AM (#26000091) Homepage Journal
      Sorry, you are misinformed. The Andorid platform was announced 20071105. JavaFX framework was announced at Java One in May 2007 six months earlier. Calling JavaFX a response to Android is plain incorrect and an apples to oranges comparison to boot.
      • by chrb ( 1083577 )

        It was known publically in March 2007 that Google had already been working on a major mobile phone project for months (eg see one report here [directtraffic.org]). The fact that this project wasn't officially unveiled until November is irrelevant; everyone in the industry knew what was going on, and Sun would certainly have been aware of their plans.

  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:30PM (#25997025)

    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.

    • Agree with your post except I doubt the predcition "in just a few years and Flash will be history" because not only is Flash heavily entrenched but that would require Flash devs to change their skill sets for this to happen. Something different is going to happen however I don't doubt Sun will have a piece of the pie this time. BTW, weren't some of the codecs or media pieces used proprietary ... I have to go back and re-read but meh .. having too much fun running JavaFX "applets?" right now ...
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by srijon ( 1091345 )

      Yeah! Java finally made it in the form is was meant to be. We love you Sun.

      Oh. Wait a moment. override? bind? def? public-init? WTF.

    • by cecom ( 698048 )
      Oh my, please hold my head up while I vomit! Are you people f*ing deluded??? How has JavaFX magically solved the problem of ridiculous loading times? I really do love Java. I do! But this is ridiculous. Hello!!! Pretending that the problem doesn't exist is not going to solve it.
    • Too little, too late. Today, it's not JavaFX vs Flash. It's JavaFX competing with Silverlight on who can take over the bigger part of the present Flash marketshare. And Silverlight is being marketed and pushed much more heavily than JavaFX, at least at the moment (not to mention that Microsoft has the benefit of (ab)using Windows Update to distribute Silverlight, and they may well switch it to "recommended update" in the future).

      Of course, this JavaFX thing still builds in the usual desktop JRE and applets,

  • by thistle ( 33628 )

    ...and has been for at least 20-30 minutes. I guess they didn't expect anyone to actually check out the site.

  • "Sun released JavaFX 1.0 today, in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies

    Why exactly would Sun want to take on Silverlight? It is not like silverlight is even relevant right now... ...Ok, it may already have an amazing marketshare of 0.01 percent the pages that abuse annoying multimedia...

  • by TheModelEskimo ( 968202 ) on Friday December 05, 2008 @01:29AM (#25999615)
    Seriously, look at the "Start" page on the JavaFX website. It gives you a choice of *three* radio buttons, and confusingly presents three different JavaFX-related packages. Nowhere does it say, "download all of these and get started," or even "which one do I want? Click our little expanding

    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)

    by AdamInParadise ( 257888 ) on Friday December 05, 2008 @01:37AM (#25999659) Homepage

    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.

  • The big difference between Java FX, Flash, and Silverlight is that Sun suggests that the stack will be open source, and Sun's track record of open-sourcing things is excellent. That would be a really significant improvement for the open internet .. vs. the ridiculous situation now with the de-facto dominance of totally proprietary Flash. Java FX may have an uphill fight, but it's clearly the one to root for if you don't want the internet locked up by Adobe or Microsoft. See here: http://java.sun.com/javaf [sun.com]
  • With Flash I arrive at a page and there's some content staring at me, waiting to be played with.

    With this I arrive at a page, click on a "Jave Webstart" link, wait for it to download, wait while it says "Downloading Application" and then, if I'm lucky, get to play with something.

    Not only that, but while Flash happily picks up my proxy settings, Java simply times out and gives an exception after a minute or so.

    This is hardly the user experience that I want...

  • by DaveV1.0 ( 203135 ) on Friday December 05, 2008 @09:09AM (#26002207) Journal

    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)

    by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Friday December 05, 2008 @11:47AM (#26004037) Homepage Journal

    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.

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