Here is another weeks fresh Java desktop links, served steaming hot straight to you – just the way I know you like it.
Enjoy.
Swing
- Rémy Rakic posts on how he achieved hardware accelerated effects in Swing using JXLayer and Decora.
- Kirill Grouchnikov has an interview with Alex Imrie on the topic of UI testing.
- James Clarke has an article on how to integrate JavaFX into Swing applications. This is a very popular topic and you can find more links in previous Java desktop links of the week posts.
- Dave Gilbert emailed me to let me know of a post which shows how to allow background images to be displayed behind charts.
- Alex Ruiz posts on how to create EDT-safe UI tests in Swing.
JavaFX
- Richard Bair posts an article asking for feedback from people relating to controls ‘auto-sizing’ when their content changes. Please, if you have any opinions leave a comment on the blog post.
- Amy Fowler responded to my questions from last week, with a detailed blog post explaining layout bounds as they stand in JavaFX 1.2. If you have read anything in the past, I suggest you still read this post as bounds changed considerably betweeen 1.0 and 1.2.
- Related to Amy’s post is the boundsizer JavaFX application, which you can find more about here. This is hosted by Stephen Chin.
- Josh Marinacci posts a webstart link to his Particle-O-Rama effects application.
- The JavaFX coding challenge has wrapped up with the winners being announced this week. Congrats to the winners.
- Osvaldo Pinali posts an updated JavaFX Balls benchmark, and writes a lot of information about this in his latest post.
- Steven Herod wants to get your thoughts on the future of TwitterFX. Let him know your thoughts, and feel free to give him a hard time for being an Aussie.
- Jim Weaver has two posts this week, the first discussing using FreeBase to create BandmatesFX, and the second showing off Indaba Console 2.0, which is an internet-based, collaborative recording studio.
- Rakesh Menon posts a blog to warn people to bind with caution. I believe that for the second point mentioned in this post there really should be some kind of isAdjusting variable in Slider so that triggers bound to slider.value can be a little bit more smart, only running compute-intensive tasks when isAdjusting is false.
- Rakesh also posted a combo box control that might be useful to people whilst they wait for a proper control to be introduced in JavaFX.
- In Rakesh‘s third post of the week, he details how to use storage functionality in JavaFX.
- Last week I mentioned Carl Dea had written part one in a two part series on linking JavaFX and JavaScript. This week he has published part two, and he also made available a demonstration.
- Additionaly, Carl is attempting to maintain a wishlist of JavaFX features on his blog. Personally I would encourage people to post their (considered) request for enhancements directly to the JavaFX-jira issues tracker. Having done this, feel free to trade the JavaFX issue urls, rather than attempt to maintain a separate repository of wishes which won’t necessarily ever been seen by anyone with any relevance to JavaFX development.
- Ambika Sukla emailed me to let me know about ‘Name the Note‘, a JavaFX applet designed to make learning to read music easier.
- Jan Goyvaerts posts a code-heavy article on how to do multipart HTTP file uploads using JavaFX.
- Finally, some good looking guy wrote a review of the Pro JavaFX Platform book, which can be read here.
Groovy
- Andres Almiray keeps his blog on all things Groovy churning out the hits, this week with two on GfxBuilder. The first post is about custom nodes, and the second on transforms and plugins.
That’s it for another week. Keep up the good work everyone, but for those of you up in the northern hemisphere, get outside and enjoy the sunshine 
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for the link-collections.
I was surprised there was no mention of Chris Olivers series of posts on his (cancelled) JavaFX project regarding 3d development.
http://blogs.sun.com/chrisoliver/entry/the_real_slim_shady
Is it because you don’t see 3D RIA development as interesting concerning Desktop application developments, or is this blog perhaps turning into a feel-good/semi-evangelist Java blog?
Cheers,
Gath
@Gath: Nice way to give feedback: start with a quick compliment and end with an insult.
I chose to ignore Chris Olivers series of posts, as I do with the myriad of news I don’t deem relevant. I don’t post every article I come across on this blog – it would result in information overload (not to mention increase my workload considerably). I chose not to mention Chris Olivers series of posts as the project has been cancelled, as you note, and as such is not really relevant to JavaFX developers wanting to learn JavaFX technology as it stands right now.
Additionally, by linking to the posts, I considered it dangerous as people may become confused over what it means for the current state of JavaFX. I know I was confused immediately after reading it.
Therefore, I chose to excercise a little editorial control and exclude these posts. I’m not sure how you can logically jump to conclude that I don’t think 3D RIA development is interesting. If there were Java desktop related posts regarding this, then I would certainly include the posts in the weekly roundup. The criteria must include however that this technology is publicly available, or in progress towards becoming available. This eliminates Chris’ posts.
For what it’s worth, I can have a feel-good blog and still cover interesting and relevant 3D RIA technologies. I was never aware these options were mutually exclusive. I also take exception to the suggestion I’ve become semi-envangelist. You do realise that a fair portion of my time is spent criticising Sun technologies? Please, tell me how to blog about Java Desktop technologies in a way that is more helpful to the people reading this blog, and I will consider doing it.
Smile.
Hi Jonathan
I owe you an apology. Reading your answer made me realize that you received a bit of my frustration towards Sun (building up for several years now). Chris Olivers attitude and non-compromising stance regarding performance was like a breath of fresh air and I’m worried if it’s dissappearing from JavaFX.
But venting that frustration here is of course totally uncalled for. Let me elaborate on the praise instead. Not only do I read your links every week, I look forward to them ! Thank you again.
Cheers,
Gath
You might also consider Spring RCP releases in the Swing news. Already missed the 1.0 release but they went to 1.1.0 last week. http://forum.springsource.org/showthread.php?t=74182
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately I don’t know much at all about Spring RCP, so I really rely on people to email me about these kinds of topics.
If there is some relevant news you think I should cover, please feel free to email me a link or an RSS feed to follow.