Sun Microsystems Thursday released JavaFX Preview, a peek into its family of products that supports web scripters, designers, and developers to build and deliver Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) across the desktop, mobile devices, television, and other consumer platforms.
Developers can today download the JavaFX Preview release at http://www.javafx.com explore the code samples and tutorials, start writing JavaFX applications and provide their feedback to Sun.
At the 13th JavaOne conference in San Francisco in May 2008, Sun’s senior director of Java, Param Singh described JavaFX as Sun’s answer to its six million Java developers request to help them deliver richer content across a broader spectrum of platforms or “all the screens of your life” – PC , mobile, TV etc.
This technology allows developers 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.
"With this announcement, Sun is delivering on the commitment it made in May at JavaOne to deliver a preview of JavaFX to the RIA community," said Ken Wallich, VP of JavaFX at Sun in a prepared statement.
"Only the Java platform is pervasive enough to allow developers to build and deploy RIAs across desktops and browsers on more than 800 million PCs, as well as billions of mobile phones and devices. JavaFX builds upon this foundation to deliver immersive and rich presentation capabilities to the existing Java platform."
The JavaFX Preview, which encompasses the JavaFX Preview SDK, NetBeans 6.1 IDE, Project Nile and Java Runtime Environment 6 Update 10 Beta, has been designed to help early adopters become familiar with JavaFX and is not yet being offered for commercial applications.
Sun said it plans to deliver the first version of JavaFX for Desktop in the fall of 2008 and the first version of JavaFX for Mobile in spring 2009.
JavaFX is competes head on with Adobe Flash/Flex and Microsoft Silverlight, both technologies which already have a strong foothold in the RIA space. |
