It has been a while since JavaOne 2007 where JavaFX was introduced for the first time. The year after was very disappointing; the technology did not seem to be ready from prime-time and was being rewritten from scratch. At JavaOne 2008 (last May) Sun Microsystems announced that the JavaFX Preview SDK would be available around this summer.

Today, the last day of July, Sun finally released the JavaFX Preview SDK. The full version of the SDK will be released in fall of this year.

Sun states: “JavaFX is the rich client platform for creating RIAs with immersive media and content across all the screens of your life (PC, mobile, TV and other consumer devices). The JavaFX Preview SDK provides web scripters and Java developers with the foundation to quickly and easily build high-impact, immersive RIAs that combine 2D and 3D graphics, high fidelity audio and video and animation, all while leveraging the power and functionality of the existing Java Platform.”

Clearly Sun wants to join the RIA game. I’ve been a believer in desktop Java since the 90’s even when Sun went over to server-side Java, abandoning the origin of Java. After the re-gained attention, the effort has been put back on client-side Java. But, the competition in this area is very strong. Adobe is way ahead with the Flashplayer based offerings (Flash and Flex) and also Microsoft is trying to get their piece of the RIA-pie with Silverlight. I think that JavaFX will be have to deal with the smallest slice of the pie.

Sun is working on plugins for the Adobe designer tools: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. These plugins would allow designers to hand-off their material to a developer in a JavaFX ready format. This work is being done within “Project Nile” and is now part of the preview SDK. Some early demos of this project have been shown at JavaOne 2008 (check out the keynote videos of the afternoon keynote). The plugins will function on both Windows and Mac.

Do you want to learn more about developing with JavaFX, check out the weblog of James Weaver.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Technology, java. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.