We're very excited to announce the immediate availability of the JavaFX 1.3
platform. This release represents an important upgrade to the product and
delivers a range of performance and functional improvements, including:
- New and enhanced support for UI
controls, CSS skinning, and programmatic layout
- Performance improvements in the
JavaFX Runtime
- New NetBeans IDE 6.9 Beta with improved editing and an updated JavaFX Composer plug-in
- New features and enhanced performance in JavaFX Production Suite
- A native JavaFX font family
called Amble
- Support for the development of
TV applications, including a new TV emulator
- Availability of the mobile
emulator on the Mac platform
Check out What's new in JavaFX 1.3 for more details and additional enhancements
It
might be hard to believe that JavaFX has only been in the market for less than one and a half years, it certainly is for us! In that time, we've built out the
foundation for mobile with a deployment ready runtime, delivered a library of
UI controls to make it substantially easier to build out consistent user
interfaces, and were able to entice developers to download over 400,000 copies
of our tools by our 1.2 release. We've released a beta of the JavaFX Composer to provide
visual-editing for form-based UIs with an exceptionally positive response and
seen the community rally around the platform with projects like JFXtras, numerous blogs, and over
a dozen
books. We've also been very excited to see companies like the
Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010
Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games adopting the technology for commercial
products and services, and we've got another well-known customer that we're
excited to start talking to you about shortly!
But
lets get back to the JavaFX 1.3 release. As we began working with some of
these high-profile customers, we found they were really pushing the limits of
JavaFX. Since our 1.2 release we've spent a lot of time carefully
evaluating our performance goals to meet the needs of these customers and have
heavily optimized in the following areas:
- Bind performance: 2-3x faster
- Applet start-up time: 20%
faster (with Java SE 6u18+)
- Text Rendering: 5-10x faster
(frames per second/FPS)
- Highly complex animations: up
to 10x faster (FPS)
- Memory usage: 20-33% reduction
(real-world apps, w/ Java SE 6u18+)
- UI Controls: 50% faster, 33%-50% less memory (typical)
Lets
take a quick look at a few of these. Binding has
often been described as one of the more powerful features in JavaFX, but many
developers found they had to use it sparingly due to performance
considerations. In JavaFX 1.3 we've implemented substantial improvements
in the way JavaFX handles binding and have seen tremendous payoffs, in
particular with applications that make heavy usage of this feature.
Start-up
time is another area where we've made substantial improvements. First,
it’s important to understand that we measure start-up time in two ways.
We measure both cold-start (the first time a user loads an applet, includes
download and initialization) and warm-start (subsequent launches of the applet). Cold-start is critical, because it’s the user’s first
impression and it’s also where we've achieved the most improvements with
1.3. To improve start-up time, we implemented a number of optimizations
throughout the stack, including the JRE and the JavaFX runtime. Basic
applications running on systems with a recent version of the JRE (Java SE
6u18+) launch 20% faster and complex applications start nearly twice as
fast! Obviously your mileage will vary depending on the specifics of your
application.
Animation
performance has been another area of focus in JavaFX 1.3. In one of our
more extreme benchmarks, we applied animations to 900 objects
simultaneously. In JavaFX 1.2 this would have resulted in a paltry 6
FPS. With JavaFX 1.3 we are now seeing an impressive 67 FPS - that's over
10x faster! Unless you are using a ton of objects in your application you
probably won't see this kind of performance gain but we've effectively removed
animations as a performance bottleneck so developers can use them much more freely in their applications. A similar benchmark with 500 animated objects managed to
deliver a 5x improvement.
A key area of focus in JavaFX 1.2 was to deliver UI controls to make it
easier for developers to build great looking user interfaces. This effort was very well received by the community and has actually become one of the most requested areas for continued improvement! To this end, UI Controls
have continued to be a major area of focus for us with JavaFX 1.3. With 1.3, we have
added and/or substantially upgraded 9 controls and have released previews for
an 8 additional controls for developers to begin experimenting with in their
applications. In addition, we have rewritten all of the existing UI
controls to take full advantage of the new CSS support in JavaFX, making them
simpler, more powerful and highly customizable. Our UI controls improvements
have also yielded substantial performance gains, in particular with
applications that make heavy usage of UI controls such as enterprise-class applications. While applications that use complex UI controls (such as ListView & TreeView) will be 150%
faster, and consume up to 50% less memory, we achieved substantially better performance with
more complex applications. For example, a 1.3 application with 200 controls uses 50-80% less memory, starts nearly
twice as quickly, and runs 50% faster (comparisons are with 1.2). For developers who might have used
UI controls sparingly in the past and/or avoided using JavaFX for applications
that required a substantial number of UI controls, JavaFX 1.3 really opens the
door to a range of new use-cases.
There's a lot more we could say about this release (and we will), but for now head
over to the download page, get a copy of the new SDK, and try it today!
Thx for this great highly-anticipated release.
<:^} Though I will much prefer that JavaFX undergoes beta/RC release much like Silverlight and Adobe Flex due to complexity of technology and major overhaul involved. At the end of day, developers will probably feel more confident of using JavaFX for major and critical projects if the roadmap for release is known beforehand, assurance through communication and the reliability hard-tested through pre-release version. Even though much of JavaFX's features are kept secret before launch probably due to competition, these probably unwarranted for as generally Java developers will prefer to use Java technology to capitalize on existing skill and knowledge. Element of surprise in term of features (or even launch) will not help those in business who will want to use JavaFX technology for their products. Having excellent Marketing, and not just technical superiority will be great for the future of JavaFX. I notice that major tech blogs are more interested in Silverlight and Flex than JavaFX though JavaFX is just as great and innovative, may be a good idea for marketing team to find out why if JavaFX is to gain momentum and support.
That's say, JavaFX is a wonderful platform. Kudos to the JavaFX team for the hard work.
<:^} ...
Posted by Geekycoder on April 22, 2010 at 04:39 PM PDT #
Wow kereen... great this what i'm waiting for. Now its time start new begining whit fresh technology.
thanks for JavaFX Team.
Posted by bhangun on April 22, 2010 at 06:38 PM PDT #
Congratulations on the release !!!. Kudos to the JavaFX team. Having followed your blogs/podcasts/webcasts etc, it feels like we know you all as "family". Go JavaFX ... Go JavaFX team !!!
It's not clear whether JavaFX 1.3 has been released for NetBeans 6.8. Can you clarify this please ?.
I tried the "update" mechanism for plugins on NetBeans 6.8. It did not "pick up" the update. I am on JavaFX 1.2.1.
After sufficient "rest" here's a request for release 1.4.
BlazeDS support. Adobe has open-sourced this. As a developer the legal-issues, "data-type mapping" etc are not clear.
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/blazeds/BlazeDS/
Cheers ...
/rk
Posted by rk tumuluri on April 22, 2010 at 07:46 PM PDT #
"Availability of the mobile emulator on the Mac platform"
Where is the support for linux... ? where is the production suite for GIMP?
Good work anyway.
Posted by abdlquadri on April 23, 2010 at 12:55 AM PDT #
Sorry for the double posting. I was contented with Netbeans 6.7 . I had to download 6.8 because of JavaFx1.2. Do I have to download 6.9beta and probably 6.9 for JavaFx1.3 . Internet access is costly where I live... Please update the plugins. I think the Netbeans platform is versatile enough for this. Please talk to Geertjan. Thanks
Posted by abdlquadri on April 23, 2010 at 01:01 AM PDT #
Congratulations to the entire JavaFX 1.3 Team!
At long last, JavaFX 1.3 SDK is released!
This is great news and get ready for another amazing demo from myself soon showing off the new functionality.
Posted by Peter Pilgrim on April 23, 2010 at 03:04 AM PDT #
this is great!..When will we have audio/video capture support?
Posted by davidwaf on April 23, 2010 at 07:06 AM PDT #
JavaFx 1.3 rocks. It tested it late night with my app. Compiled like a charm and it's really boosting my app. I can visibly easily see that it's faster. Framerate of my app has gone up! juuhuu
Posted by suvi on April 23, 2010 at 09:55 AM PDT #
There have been a couple of questions about whether you can use JavaFX 1.3 with NetBeans 6.8. At this point, we are only offering support for using the JavaFX SDK with NetBeans 6.9 Beta.
Thanks for all of the feedback so far and keep it coming!
- Jacob
Posted by Jacob Lehrbaum on April 23, 2010 at 11:23 AM PDT #
This is wonderful, thanks a lot and please keep the excellent work!
Posted by Roger on April 23, 2010 at 12:56 PM PDT #
JavaFX 1.3 looks like a great improvement over 1.2.x. However, it seems that the Eclipse plugin does not recognize the JavaFX 1.3 as a valid SDK. Is there a workaround for that?
Posted by Rudolf J Streif on April 23, 2010 at 05:47 PM PDT #
"Fabio Riccardi, CEO of LightCrafts has now publicly confirmed the company’s direction with its flagship LightZone product(s). According to Riccardi, “…at Light Crafts we’re rewriting LightZone using Java Fx.”"
www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone
from http://eclecticchoices.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/lightzone-4-to-be-rewritten-in-java-fx/
I can't wait to see commercial-grade software develop from Swing to JavaFX !
Posted by GeekyCoder on April 24, 2010 at 01:42 AM PDT #
It's really a pity that Javafx medal results of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver is not longer available :(
It's really bad user experience if JavaFx is trying to load 3 min and after that stops with error:
exception: JNLP file error: http://www.vancouver2010.com/ns/javafx/MedalVisualizer/snowapp_browser.jnlp. Please make sure the file exists and check if "codebase" and "href" in the JNLP file are correct..
java.io.FileNotFoundException: JNLP file error: http://www.vancouver2010.com/ns/javafx/MedalVisualizer/snowapp_browser.jnlp. Please make sure the file exists and check if "codebase" and "href" in the JNLP file are correct.
at sun.plugin2.applet.JNLP2Manager.loadJarFiles(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Could you guys possibly contanct with "vancouver team" and get it running again? It's really nice example what you can achieve with JavaFx and it's bad that it's not working.
Posted by ella on April 26, 2010 at 01:02 AM PDT #
This is a great release. It is already apparent that JavaFX (on top of Java, of course) is the best RIA technology out there from a technical perspective. True, there are some still necessary additions - more controls, better UX (esp. cold start and first-time download), webcam support, full 3D (meshes, lighting) - but what JavaFX needs now most of all is some great marketing.
If I may suggest one marketing item - get JavaFX on the Android. Yeah, it hurts because Android broke away from the JCP, but you must admit there were some reasonable reasons to do that. Anyway, Oracle should swallow its pride and get JavaFX on Android handsets, which are currently the hottest Java(ish) platforms out there. Go ahead, get JavaFX to millions of savvy users right now.
Posted by pron on April 27, 2010 at 10:59 AM PDT #
These improvements are great, but until I distribute the runtime JavaFX is pretty much useless as far as I am concerned. We have several customers with bad or no internet connections, thus, we cannot sell them code that incorporates JavaFX. The result is that we will be excluding JavaFX from our product until the runtime is licensed for redistribution.
Posted by 68.143.27.30 on April 27, 2010 at 11:34 AM PDT #
Love to see all the performance enhancements done in this release. but I am also missing the production Suite for Linux. Any information when it would be available?
Posted by Tsiolkovsky on April 28, 2010 at 02:33 PM PDT #
yuo yari godivi mai is the gles is flondon
a y
ou me fomaci estable sou the is
nonbre leandro
Posted by leandro serafim do nascimento on April 29, 2010 at 09:06 AM PDT #
Have to agree with the request for an Android runtime (and a simulator in the Netbeans IDE!) This is the open platform for the Java mobile coders among us. Windows mobile is over.
Posted by Ari Goldstein on April 29, 2010 at 12:27 PM PDT #
hola a todos
Posted by 201.151.46.138 on April 29, 2010 at 11:46 PM PDT #
I'm glad to see JavaFX moving along because I have a project where I would love to use it but the lacking UI controls stopped me dead in my tracks. I also hope as one poster said that the roadmap is opened up. There is no point in trying to hide from competitors. Honestly you're in last place and need to be showing where you plan to pass the others.
And though I'd love to see this on Android I imagine pride won't be swallowed and Android will move on ahead leaving JavaFX dangling as a good idea that never caught on.
Posted by Phil on April 30, 2010 at 11:06 AM PDT #
You should focus on increasing stability. I still have common javafx application hangs on firefox 3.6.3 and jdk6_20. If java application is running out of brower it have no stability problems.
Posted by Beastek Emil on May 02, 2010 at 04:43 AM PDT #
I need a way to integrate my swing apps with JavaFx, without hacking, tricks or something. Just to insert a scene inside my JFrame. Is that (more) possible with 1.3?
Posted by Hidra on May 10, 2010 at 06:29 PM PDT #
Congratulations for the performance improvements. Just keep the hard work.
Posted by Nikos on May 15, 2010 at 12:38 PM PDT #
xcxc
xcx
Posted by 122.175.65.205 on June 17, 2010 at 02:16 AM PDT #
Its very nice to see the extra features and i hope it is going to rule the world in new future.
- Narasimha R G
Posted by 122.175.65.205 on June 17, 2010 at 02:18 AM PDT #