LEAPS AND BOUNDS

is a
leap forward
mix
and match

JAVA IN ACTION

Nandini Ramani and
members of the JavaFX 2.0
team discuss the
product’s roadmap.

skinning via CSS. This new set of powerful components will allow any developer to build advanced enterprise application interfaces. Also, the JavaFX UI controls will be the first component of JavaFX to be open sourced as an OpenJDK project. This will enable developers to build their own custom versions of components, which the Swing community has been doing for many years. Java Magazine: Can JavaFX 2.0 code be easily integrated into existing Swing applications? Ramani: Yes, Swing and JavaFX cooperate well. Within existing Swing applications, you can either add on or embed JavaFX. All Swing capabilities are retained, but the portions rendered with JavaFX leverage all the new capabilities. For instance, if you want to embed a Web browser into your Swing application, you can do so by embedding the JavaFX WebView. Another option is to rewrite some of the Swing code for JavaFX. It’s a great migration path for existing Swing applications.

Java Magazine: What
operating systems will be
supported by JavaFX 2.0?
Ramani: The first release will support 32-bit
and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP,
Windows Vista, and Windows 7. In addition,
we’ll be releasing a developer preview of the
JavaFX 2.0 SDK for Mac OS X. A Linux version
will be made available at a later date.
Java Magazine: How will JavaFX evolve
going forward?
Ramani: On the client side, we’re trying to
stay in lockstep with the evolution of the
Java platform. We will integrate new fea-
tures as they emerge, like invokedynamic and
NIO. 2. Two of the biggest enhancements to
the Java platform planned for Java SE 8 are
modularization and lambda expressions.
JavaFX APIs were specifically designed with
both of these features in mind. For example,
the event handling APIs are all designed
around SAM [single abstract method] inter-
faces, which happen to be the exact type of
interface that the lambda proposal for
Java SE 8 requires.

ABOUT US

Michael Meloan began his professional career writing IBM mainframe and DEC PDP- 11 assembly languages. He went on to code in PL/I, APL, C, and Java. In addition, his fiction has appeared in WIRED, BUZZ, Chic, LA Weekly, and on National Public Radio. He is also a Huffington Post blogger.