JavaFX Links of November 2023

Have fun with this overview of the “JavaFX LinksOfTheWeek” that got published on jfx-central.com during November.

Core

• Carl Dea shared: “JavaFX 22 will be supporting platform specific settings! E.g. dark and light mode etc.”. See JDK-8319138: Platform preferences API.
  • Also worth following: JDK-8305116: “Frosty / Milky / diffuse transparency areas showing desktop background”
• Dirk Lemmermann is looking forward to the next release of JavaFX: “We can hope to see CSS transitions, themes, and Platform API (dark mode, accent colors).”
• JavaFX Wish Lists by:
  • Dirk Lemmermann: removal of AWT, a tray API (tray icon),…
  • LeeWyatt: support for SVG Icons and Animations, Responsive Layout Pane/Adaptive Layout Pane
  • Thanhpv: clipping improvement
  • And others in the same thread…
• Pedro Duque Vieira shared “Ongoing work to add CSS transitions to JavaFX”.

Applications

• Pedro Duque Vieira shared screenshots of the initial prototype of HERO (a JavaFX app in production) and screenshots of the app after its redesign and implementation. He also shared some quick remarks about the redesign.
• OrangoMango shared an impressive video of 3D rendering: “Now the camera is always pointing to the airplane and it can also freely move. It’s on the Raspberry Pi and with this resolution it lags a bit with the screen recorder.”
• Serendipity is proud! “Yes, we did it! A JavaFX APP is first in the Apple Store ranking for macOS! SmartFinder number one! Another small step for all Java lovers. JavaFX write once run anywhere.”
• Robert Ladstätter announced v23.3.0 of LogoRRR, the tool to analyze log files and filter out critical events or other points of interest: “Successfully resolved a significant performance issue in LogoRRR. This enhancement is the highlight of version 23.3.0”.
• RNArtist announced the availability of RNArtist 1.1.3 with the ability to define a zooming area with the left mouse button. More info and a video demo is available here.
• Randil Hasanga shared screenshots of Book Nook, a Stock Portfolio Management System.
• Tharindu Nuwan Madhushanka unveilled a Media Player App and a link to the sources: “From crisp audio playback to stunning video performance, this app sets a new standard”.

Games

• GZYangKui shared some tweets while working on games and successfully resolved an audio output delay issue.
• OrangoMango has been very active!
  • Tetris in the browser, but also for Windows, Linux, macOS, and of course Raspberry Pi.
  • RailTheWay 2.0: “Major update! Guide the trains to their station and avoid collisions.”
  • FlightSimulator, exclusively using the JavaFX canvas.
  • “Update video about my Minecraft clone made with my 3D engine from scratch.

Components, Libraries, Tools

• Dirk Lemmermann: “AtlantaFX is currently my theme of choice. It is modern looking, very elegant, very professional, well documented, supports various modes (yes, dark mode and darcula, too), comes with an auto-updating sampler app, custom skins, much simpler styling rules than Modena, etc … if you haven’t done so, yet, please check out the repo.”
  • V1.90.0 of GemsFX, which includes an SVGImageView control to display SVG files. The control uses the jsvg project to render to an AWT image, convert it, and then display it inside an ImageView.
  • Dirk also announced the release of a new JavaFX input field for phone numbers which is utilising the libphonenumber project from Google to format and validate the numbers. The project can be found on GitHub. The main contributor is Gabriel Diaz.
  • Version 1.5.0 of that library has been refactored and greatly simplified.
• Mushtak Abdulqadir describes several libraries in a LinkedIn post (BootstrapFX, ControlsFX, FormsFX, FXGL, Ikonli, TilesFX, ValidatorFX) and is asking for feedback: “Which of these libraries have you used, and what has been your experience with them?”
• Announced by Abhinay Agarwal: release of ControlsFX v11.2.0! Baseline has been moved to JavaFX 17 and is compatible with JavaFX 21. The release notes can be found here and JavaDoc here.
  • And he is looking for advise: “Which JavaFX control would you recommend to read very large text files?”.
• V4.0 of openglfx has been released. This library adds a new element to JavaFX to render OpenGL graphics. It is optimized for each platform and includes some auxiliary functions for working with OpenGL from JavaFX.

Podcast, Video, Books

• At J-Fall in the Netherlands, Frank Delporte had a lot of live interviews with speakers and guests, including Gerrit Grunwald. In this short interview, they also talk about JavaFX.
• On airhacks.fm, the podcast by Adam Bien: How Gerrit Grunwald wrote SteelSeries. “A podcast episode about pixel perfect Java user interfaces, JavaFX, and Java’s portability”.

Tutorials

• Edward Nyirenda Jr again published several tutorials, for instance:
  • JavaFX Lighting Effect: “The Light.Spot represents a point light source with characteristics similar to a spotlight.”
  • JavaFX Phone Number Input Field: using the library “PhoneNumberFX” that just got released.

Miscellaneous

• Screenshot by Rumble Tumble Kid of the minimal code to run ScalaFX.
• Carl Dea is wondering if anyone is interested in Java 21.0.1 & JavaFX 21.0.1 Scenic View.
• Heshan Kariyawasam is working on an example project to build JavaFX executables for different platforms with Gradle, jpackage, and GitHub Actions.
• OrangoMango is visualizing prime numbers with JavaFX. The source code is on pastebin.

JFX Central

• A new version has been released with several utilities / tools to develop JavaFX applications: gradient editor, SVG path extractor, effects editor, pixel-to-em converter, CSS playground. You can find the utilities here.
• “Random” sorting will be added to the category pages so that every item gets the same chance to be seen or found.
• Dirk Lemmermann shared a video showing the superfast startup of the JFX Central app, as a native app, thanks to Gluon.
• The summary with all the JFX Central links of October got published on Foojay.io.