One Year On: Sun's JavaFX gets a preview release

Sun has released a preview of JavaFX, their answer to Adobe's Flash/Flex and Microsoft's Silverlight, which was announced over a year ago at the JavaOne conference in 2007. Sun remained relatively quiet about JavaFX for the following year, but after breaking the silence at the 2008 JavaOne conference, they have now released a preview software development kit.

In the SDK, developers will find the JavaFX compiler and runtime, plugins for Netbeans IDE 6.1, documentation, tools and samples. The SDK also includes Project "Nile" plugins for Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3 to allow those applications to integrate with JavaFX and enable easier asset creation.

JavaFX based Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) will run with the support of a browser plugin or run on the desktop. With the upcoming Java SE 6 update 10, the user being will be able to drag a JavaFX applet in the browser to the desktop, where it will be able to be run browserless.

The first production version of JavaFX for desktops is due in autumn 2008, with a mobile version of JavaFX coming in Spring 2009. The open source version of JavaFX, OpenJFX has already released a compiler, parts of the graphic libraries and tools, under the GPL2 licence.

(djwm)