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JavaFX 1.0 released – where is JWebPane?

Posted December 12th, 2008 by

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Where is JWebPane?

JavaFX 1.0 was released last week, and it’s great that it’s out for Windows, but there are lots of things missing from it (like support for OSX or Linux). The biggest missing item for me is the Webkit browser component called JWebPane. I have been looking forward to using this component for months now, and it’s still not out. I visited the blog of the author of this component, and this is what he said:

“Sorry for a significant delay with answer. JavaFX 1.0 release is of very high priority for Sun, and we do our best to release it is the best quality. Unfortunately, JWebPane component is not as stable now, so it will not be a part of 1.0 Uur current plans are to open JWebPane right after 1.0 is released, roughly in a couple of months.”

Posted by: ixmal on September 29, 2008 at 01:34 AM

“Good news is that this delay allows JWebPane team to spend some time on plugins support. Watch for updates”

Posted by: ixmal on September 29, 2008 at 01:37 AM
So that was a few months ago (Sept 29)… I don’t know how long a couple of months is… so who knows when this component will be released.

Marketing brought to you by retarded monkeys

Ok, now to the JavaFX SDK. I don’t like Sun’s marketing message, the main themes of which are:

  1. web browsers are hostile, cut them out of the loop. This is stupid and childish. Just because Sun hadn’t updated their stupid worthless and inadequate excuse for a Java plugin in years (due to their legal crap with MS) they shouldn’t blame browsers. Look at GWT as a great example of embracing the limitations of the browser and using innovation and brilliance to make Java useful to create something really useful and easy to use in Java. All without having to learn yet another scripting language :) .
  2. since you (the developer) have so much free time, you should waste it learning a new scripting language called JavaFX Script. You can access all the APIs in Java code, but Sun insists that you learn yet another new scripting language!
  3. you’re going to be using JavaFX on “all the screens of your life”. What the hell does that even mean? People use apps/services/devices that integrate with their lifestyle, not f**king screens! WTF?! What team of retarded monkeys does Sun hire to come up with this shit?! All the screens of my life? JavaFX only works on Windows! WTF?!?!?!?! So many promises. Yet, nothing delivered so far.

Wow. That’s some horrendous marketing. Talk about over promising and under delivering!

Yet another f**king scripting language to waste my time

My reaction is that I don’t want to learn another f**king language to do what Swing should already do. Why not put animation controls in the layout manager classes, for instance; why create this alternate toolkit that’s rooted in Swing (JComponent is the root class for both APIs) but the API is divergent with Swing. After being burnt by using SwingX for a while, it’s sad to see another non-consolidated API offering from Sun (not the first, nor the last).

The SceneGraph API is great, but it’s missing JWebPane, and an editor component, and lots of other controls, so it’s USELESS for building anything more complex than say a glorified calculator. The web service connectors are woefully inadequate. Use a JSON library and my Task API, you will have more hair left at the end of the day :) . The media framework is a good start, but they don’t supply the tools to encode video on the Java cross platform format?! For JavaFX v1 the strategy seems to be to support native video on it’s native platform – so why even use Java? :) . It seems some retarded monkeys are not only doing the marketing but also have a hand in creating the strategic roadmap.

What else, did I mention that I hate having to learn another freaking scripting language? I don’t want to adopt JavaFX Script and it’s new paradigm for wasting my time. Anyway, there are others who have done this sort of API more elegantly, without a huge budget or workforce – check Galileo out. I don’t like that Sun is pushing this FX Script crap on developers – there is pure Java access to the APIs in JavaFX, so if you wanted you could use your Java code to use the new SceneGraph API and leverage some of the effects in there…

Overall, I’m disappointed at this release. Why not call this a Beta release, instead of 1.0?

Let me know if you’re using FX Script in real world software, and not just dinky demos. I get the feeling that outside of Sun, no one cares about JavaFX, at least the way in which they package, define, and market the set of technologies they call JavaFX.

 

2 Responses to “JavaFX 1.0 released – where is JWebPane?”

  1. facildelembrar Says:
    January 23rd, 2009 at 2:05 am

    A in previous post, you published a link to the “standalone” scenegraph library project (https://scenegraph.dev.java.net/) (which is as I type in version 0.6) that can be used with pure java. Maybe sun will port other libraries out of javafx eventually.

    I’m a designer and I have lots of experience with actionscript but only recently started programming in java. I’m also very dissapointed that sun forced a new scripting language to use along with javafx. From my personal experience, java learning curve is steeper than the actionscript one, so I understand Sun’s move. But now that I can program in Java, I don’t want to take a step back. I like a lot that in Java, type safety and exception handling are not optional. That I can choose between and array and a list. That I have many list options. While these things may get in the way when your beginning to learn java, they help a lot when writing longer, more complex code. Maybe Sun should’ve made the script thing optional.

  2. Nazmul Says:
    January 24th, 2009 at 2:43 am

    Hi facildelembrar,

    Thanks for posting such a thoughtful comment. It’s refreshing to hear someone with a different background than myself echoing similar thoughts on how Sun has totally missed the ball with JavaFX. They’ve created something equally distasteful for the following constituents: people who know Java, and people who don’t!

    I find your observations on learning Java and comparing it to ActionScript refreshing. So many people get obsessed with whatever technology/tools they are working with that they don’t acknowledge the merits/deficiencies in their chosen technology/tools. There is good and bad aspects to every technology… however, Sun could have done a much better job with their resources than coming up with a brand new scripting language! They have no clue who their audience is!

    Also, instead of wasting all the time, as they have done, they should have put that energy into making WebKit for Java, and creating an upgraded Swing UI library that has animated transitions, and lots of other UI niceties built in! I find it appalling that you have to jump through hoops to get simple UI beautification done in Java, and all the while, all this energy and time and money have been wasting coming up with this alternate platform to Swing. Wow. Some really stupid people are running the show at Sun, I’m sad to say. I like what they did with JDK Update 10/N… finally bringing native font rasterization to Java, a feature that should have been there years ago! Anyway, they follow up that great progress with JavaFX. Sad. There is so much work to be done in media playback and capture as well. Sad again.

    Take care,
    Nazmul.