JavaFX

In a number of cases, RIA technology is more suitable for a project than plain HTML. From a user interface perspective, Rich Internet Applications resemble desktop applications and they can be more intuitive, response and attractive than typical web pages.

LodgON is working with JavaFX in a number of research projects. There are a number of reasons why we are investigating in this relatively young technology:

• JavaFX allows us to reuse our Java knowledge base, since Java code can be called from JavaFX (and mostly vice versa as well). As a consequence, the rich Java platform (including the graphical packages) is available in JavaFX as well.
• The Java Runtime can be easily installed by end users - this was not the case some years ago
• The JavaFX development team is spending lots of efforts in the collaboration between designers and developers. At this moment, it is already rather easy to export objects from e.g. Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop, and to include those objects in a JavaFX project.

The latter reason can hardly be underestimated. It is our experience that a large portion of project-specific work is due to iterations between designers and developers. Tools that improve this interaction can reduce the cost of a project dramatically.

Read more about a specific JavaFX chat client we wrote in Johan's Java blog .