Just a quick note. I have added a new page for the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group live stream in the toolbar above. It contains an embedded movie player, chat window, and link to Google Moderator. The direct url is: http://steveonjava.com/svjugfx/

I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but the live stream is definitely worth the effort to watch. It is the only place you will get to hear the interesting commentary by JavaFX experts such as Jim Weaver, Dean Iverson, Jonathan Giles, and others.

Please also use this post to respond with comments and suggestions about the stream so we can improve it in future meetings.

We will be broadcasting tonight at 7PM PST, so please join us for a great presentation from Amy Fowler!

To bring in the New Year, I did a complete revamp of my blog.  Wordpress.com served me well initially, but the limitations started to cramp my style.  Now I am off the corporate cloud and running on a 100% Open Source platform.

Here are some of the benefits of the new blogging platform:

• Inline JavaFX and Java applets – No need to click a link or launch a web start application to see my latest creations.
• Embedded videos – I can now embed videos from all 3rd party sites, including developer favorites like Parleys.com.
• Unencumbered styling – No limitations on what I can do with styles and themes for the site (although I promise to keep it tame!)

I also spent some doing a minor site redesign.  Some of the new features include:

• Updated site theme – Uses the latest Freshy 2 release from Jidé (I guess I am partial to French designers)
• DZone and Twitter post links – Feel free to vote up (or down) anything you see or retweet it to your followers
• Contact form – Good way to directly poke me in case I am asleep at the wheel (sometimes I need a reminder)

I will be taking advantage of all these and other features of the new platform throughout the rest of 2010.

And finally, some local fireworks from the celebration over San Francisco to enjoy:

Happy New Year!

The two talks I gave at Devoxx 2009 are now available on the Parleys.com website for online viewing.

I would recommend you start with the University Talk, which is the most in-depth tutorial on the JavaFX Language and Platform available today.  This talk also features a guest appearance by Tor Norbye who demonstrated the new NetBeans JavaFX Designer Tool (which is distinct from the Authoring Tool):

Netbeans JavaFX Designer Demo

http://devoxx.parleys.com/#st=5&id=1636

The second is the JavaFX Enterprise Developer talk, which showcased many of the new JFXtras components that we are about to release in the 0.6 JFXtras release (a preview of which is available today).  It also goes into detail on JavaFX unit testing with FEST-JavaFX, which is a tool any enterprise developer should use regularly:

Pro JavaFX - Developing Enterprise Applications

http://devoxx.parleys.com/#st=5&id=1593

Both talks are available now for a small fee to register, which is well worth it for all the great content at the conference.  There was a lot of preparation work that went into these talks, so I hope you enjoy them!

 

IRONMAN Germany – Finish Line
 
Originally uploaded by Daniel Rüd (ruedfotos.de)

Tomorrow is the last day for the WidgetFX Contest! We don’t have as grand of a finish line as IRONMAN in Germany, but I am sure there will be some excitement as we get down to the last couple hours.

It is a little too late to start a new Widget from scratch, but still plenty of time to wrap an existing JavaFX application as a Widget and submit it. (By the way, if you have trouble uploading a widget, drop an e-mail on the WidgetFX Users List.)

Best of luck to all the WidgetFX Contest Entrants!

We have had quite a few additions to the project team over the past couple weeks.

The JFXtras Team - Ninjas... of JavaFX

Please join me in welcoming the following folks:

• Jonathan Giles – Jonathan is best known for his weekly Java Desktop Links of the Week, and recently (yesterday) contributed a very high quality JavaFX menu bar component to the JFXtras project.  Here is a link to his most recent blog entry on the subject:

  http://jonathangiles.net/blog/?p=566

• Rakesh Menon – Rakesh, a member of the Sun JavaFX team, has been building out a set of standard JavaFX parsers for various services such as Twitter, Yahoo, and Flickr.  He will be contributing these to the JFXtras project for incorporation in a future release.  You can read more about his JavaFX exploits on his blog:
  http://blogs.sun.com/rakeshmenonp/
• Jeff Friesen – JavaJeff is a developer and educator who wrote the very first article on JFXtras for JavaWorld.  He has agreed to contribute his Custom Cursors and Custom Paints to the JFXtras project from his popular java.net articles.  There is some documentation and testing needed before this is ready for release if anyone is interested in volunteering.
• Till Ballendat – Till created some great widgets for the WidgetFX Contest, and graciously offered to submit some of his components to the JFXtras project.  He has already checked in his MultiLineTextBox component from his Twitter widget.
• Liu Huasong – Liu (a.k.a. goodsforyou) has started contributing some of his code from real JavaFX projects.  His most recent check-in included some advanced gradients including an HSB variant for Linear and Radial gradients.
• Simon Morris – Simon, author of the upcoming JavaFX in Action book, has contributed a wipe transitions library.  It needs a little bit of documentation and work, so if anyone is interested in helping to productize this, let me know!

And also the following contributors to the JFXtras Community Site:

• Carl Dea – Carl was winner of the “Dude, Where’s My Pass?” JavaOne contest, and has become a JavaFX community champion.  He has taken the JFXtras Links page and run with it, so please be sure to check out his latest work.
• David Armitage – David contributed his JFXMines application to the JFXtras Samples library.  He also prodded me to get the Community Forum going.
• Sten Anderson – Sten is winner of the JavaFX 25K Challenge, and has released the full source code for his winning entry, Music Explorer FX, to the JFXtras Samples repository.
• Mark Macumber – Mark is one of our first project members who did early work on charting.  He recently contributed a Hudson charting mash-up to the JFXtras Samples library.

And of course our long-time contributors including: Jim Clarke, Dean Iverson, Keith Combs, Steven Bixby, and Jim Weaver.

If you are interested in joining the JFXtras team, we have plenty of work to go around.  Please drop a note on the JFXtras Developers mailing list and let us know what you are interested in helping out with.

I put together the JFXtras Test 0.5 Release today.  This release includes full support for JavaFX 1.2, new comparison expectations (thanks to Peter Pilgrim!), and asynchronous testing support.

You can download JFXtras Test 0.5 here:
http://code.google.com/p/jfxtras/downloads/list

This will be the final release under this name as the codebase is merged with the FEST project.

So what do you get when JFXtras Test and FEST Unite?

JFXtras Test + FEST = FEST-JavaFX

Here is what you might want:

• A super-sonic drill that pulverizes Gunmen
• An extra face growing out of your stomach with cool shades and a wicked smile
• A special attack with a killer name like “Giga Drill Breaker!”

But you will have to settle with:

• Tests for JavaFX, written in JavaFX
• Behavior-Driven Development
• Fluent Assertions
• Parameterized Tests
• Declarative Unit Testing
• JavaFX UI Testing
• JUnit Integration

Enjoy the final release of JFXtras Test, and look forward to some exciting new work from the FEST-JavaFX project in the months to come!

Duke Rocking Out

Joshua Marinacci and I received the Rock Star award for our “Getting Started with WidgetFX” session.  If you haven’t already, check out my post-session blog with pictures and the full presentation.  Thanks everyone who came to the session and made it a success!

This was a huge year for Java client technologies.  Congratulations to all the JavaFX and Java Desktop winners this year:

• Hinkmond Wong - After presenting at 10! JavaOne conferences he has finally joined the JavaOne Rockstar ranks.  Find out more about converting Midlets to JavaFX Mobile in his presentation.  Congratulations!
• Kirill Grouchnikov - The stalwart desktop champion, Kirill, proved that Swing still has some kick!  He unveiled a full-featured ribbon component for Swing that gives Office 2007 a run for its money.
• Deane Richan - Deane showed that Swing apps don’t have to look like “Something my Cat Coughed Up” with a visually inspiring Gradebook application design.  Learn his design and architecture secrets in the presentation.
• Chet Haase & Romain Guy - Chet and Romain had the guts to talk about animation for 45 minutes and it paid off with a great presentation!  Learn animation principles from the masters that apply to any platform you are working in whether it is Swing or JavaFX in their presentation.
• Jasper Potts & Rich Bair - Last, but not least, Jasper and Rich should have been given their own advanced JavaFX track at the conference.  They presented in multiple sessions, revealing all the secrets of the JavaFX 1.2 release.  Find out more about Graphics, Animation, and CSS in this presentation.

Also, congratulations to all the JavaOne Rockstars!  You are the guys who will keep the Java platform running successfully into the next decade!

I had the pleasure of presenting on WidgetFX and JFXtras last night for the Oakland Java SIG.  It was a small, but very engaged audience, and Chris Richardson was a great host!

As usual, Nabaztag was a huge hit.  He got a little upgrade to WidgetFX 1.2 and is now available to try on the WidgetFX Library site:

Nabaztag Widget Speaks!

Note: Make sure you enter the serial number and token of your rabbit in the config dialog of the widget or it will not work.

All the other samples including the MediaExplorer, DrawJFXtras, Spheres Demo, and JFXtras Shelf are available on the new JFXtras Community Site (more on this in a few days):

Shelf Demo on the JFXtras Community Site

There was a lot of new content on JFXtras that I put together just for this event, so I have posted the presentation in two parts as PDF documents here:

Part A (JFXtras): SuperchargingWithJFXtras

Part B (WidgetFX): SuperchargingWithWidgetFX

I hope you enjoy the demos and slides!

Sang Shin has included WidgetFX as part of his 15 week JavaFX Programming Course that is currently underway.  This is a free online course that you can take at your own pace based on his excellent training materials.

Sang Shin, Java Passion instructor

The scheduled date for the WidgetFX module is July 25th, and will feature an online lab and homework to teach basic widget development.

Sign up at javapassion.com and sharpen your skills on JavaFX and WidgetFX for free!

While you are learning WidgetFX, this is a great opportunity to toss an entry into the Widget Developer Contest that is running until the end of July.

WidgetFX Developer Contest

JavaFX 1.2 officially hit the shelves today, and I have my own announcement to follow it up.

My Getting Started with JavaFX Refcard is available and fully updated for the JavaFX 1.2 release! (how is that for just-in-time documentation)

JavaFX Refcard Sample Application

It includes sections on the following:

It also has a very thorough JavaFX Reference that covers everything from operator precedence to JavaFX sequence nuances.  Please give it a read:

http://refcardz.dzone.com/

This blog entry is also a good place to give me feedback on the article, so fire away in the comments section, or come to one of my JavaOne sessions and ask in person!