The new JavaFX Preview SDK was just released today. Find out more about it here – http://javafx.com.

What is it?

From the FAQ:

JavaFX Preview SDK is a preview release of the JavaFX platform. This release is aimed at web scripters and early adopters who want to familiarize themselves with the JavaFX technologies and tools. The SDK also includes Project Nile, a suite of tools and plugins, to enable scripters to incorporate and manipulate graphical assets from design tools like Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 and Adobe® Illustrator® CS3.

The JavaFX Preview release consists of the the following components:

• The JavaFX compiler and runtime tools, 2D graphics and media libraries to create highly interactive applications for desktop and browser, as well as tutorials, API documentation and sample code.
• Netbeans IDE 6.1 with JavaFX: Provides a sophisticated development environment to build, preview, and debug JavaFX applications.
• Project Nile: A suite of tools and plugins for Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Illustrator CS3 that enable exporting of graphical assets to JavaFX applications.
• Java Runtime Environment 6 Update 10 Beta release: This new version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) provides a redesigned Java browser plug-in that allows drag and drop of JavaFX applications from the browser to the desktop.

For the preview release, JavaFX Preview SDK provides native media support on the Windows platform only. Future releases will support native codecs on Mac OS X, as well as a set of cross-platform codecs. For this release, Java FX utilizes the Windows DirectShow library, and while Java FX should play all formats that DirectShow supports, the following have explicitly been tested:

Container Types:

• ASF (Advanced Systems Format),MPEG-1, AVI (Audio-Video Interleaved),WAVE, MIDI (Standard MIDI)

Encoding Types:

• WMAUDIO8 (WindowsMedia Audio 2/7/8),WMSCREEN (Windows Media Screen), WMVIDEO9 (Windows Media Video 9), Voxware, MS MPEG-4, WMVIDEO7 (Windows Media Video 7), MPEG11 Video, MPEG-1 Audio, Uncompressed video (RGB/YUV/RLE), PCM, ADPCM, MP3, MIDI

Protocol Types:

• HTTP, FILE
• Known not to work at present are media with DRM (Digital Rights Management), and media played directly from DVD or CD.

Download it

Here are the downloads available from Sun:

1. Netbeans IDE 6.1 with JavaFX: A development bundle for application developers to see JavaFX technology in action
2. Project Nile: A suite of tools and plugins for designers to export graphical assets into JavaFX applications
3. JavaFX Preview SDK without NetBeans IDE. Advanced users can download the JavaFX Preview SDK without the NetBeans IDE 6.1 and the JavaFX plugin. Release Notes.

More information

You can get more information on the JavaFX blog, and JavaFX SDN Site. Here are more resources:

1. Tutorial – Getting started with JavaFX.
2. Tutorial – Creating a simple JavaFX app using Netbeans.
3. Tutorial – Video of JavaFX and Netbeans. 
4. Tutorial – JavaFX SDK Runtime.
5. Docs – JavaFX SDK docs.
6. Docs – Installing and using Project Nile.
7. Info – What’s coming in the final v1.0 release of JavaFX SDK.

Enjoy!

I plan on covering every aspect of JavaFX in great detail on developerlife as soon as I can .