Site Updates:

• We have added a entire section on the website listing our partners : check out - javafx.com/partners 

 What's New on javafx.com learn:

• A screencast by Scott Hommel - Creating an Image Slideshow
• and as you may have read in an earlier blog post, we have updated the Tech Test Train Training app

Here are some recent blogs and articles about JavaFX :

• Simon Morris author of JavaFX in Action  is writing  a multi-part blog called The Bluffers Guide to JavaFX in the Inside RIA blog.
• Read about Programming bitmapped graphics with JavaFX on java.net 
• A Scala console written in JavaFX
• A book review of Essential JavaFX
• A multi-part blog on Creating a Simple Game in JavaFX 
• Peter Pilgrim makes an introduction to the Java FX platform in - Enterprise Java FX for the Web Platform
• A recording 

  Max Katz's webinar titled "Build RIA with JavaFX, Flamingo and Seam

• Lightroom statistics - A JavaFX utlility for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom users

• Cheqlist a JavaFX desktop to-do application based on the Remember The Milk developer API

• Weekly links from Jonathan Giles

 Here are a couple of links to JavaFX apps that were left as comments in the previous round up post: 

• Aljoscha Rittner has written a small presentation app that shows the features of JavaFX. (click link to go to the open source project) 
• Alex Gnodtke has written a tutorial to take a simple JavaSE  game and convert it to JavaFX [also mentioned above]

 In News related to contests: 

• Jim Weaver has announced the JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge  : Deadline - Jan 2010

"Create an application in JavaFX that exemplifies the appearance and behavior of a next-generation enterprise RIA (rich internet application)"

• Thje next jfxstudio challenge - (theme : five) is now closed. You can visit the site to see some of the submissions, learn about the results or learn about the next contest theme.

You can also read about, and see the code for Jasper Potts submission to an earlier contest : the radial clock - at the FXperience blog 

Events:

The initial launch meeting of the Silicon Valley Java Users Group is scheduled for the 9th of December. Richard Bair, JavaFX lead developer will be presenting 

Releases: 

• A new version of WidgetFX, which includes some new functionality, including a new slideshow widget and support for 64-bit systems has been released

As you may know, we've had a mobile emulator built into the JavaFX SDK since our 1.1 release back in February, but only if you were using Windows as your development platform.  Well, if you are one of the many JavaFX developers that uses a Mac as their primary development machine, we have a couple of solutions for you.

The first option is to get a Windows Mobile-based device and install our JavaFX Mobile runtime.  This runtime has been tested on the HTC Diamond and the LG Incite, but should work on a wide variety of Windows Mobile 6.1 or 6.5 devices.  Once you have the runtime installed, you should be able to build and deploy apps directly to this device from within Netbeans.  If you would like to learn more about how to use this runtime, check out this blog entry by Terrence Barr.

And now, I'm excited to let you know that we've just released an Early Access build of the Java ME SDK for Mac OS X.  With this release, you can build your mobile apps in Netbeans and then run them in an emulator using the Java ME SDK, directly on your desktop!  (Note: we'll integrate this better in the future, but for now you can build your apps in NetBeans and then open them in the Java ME SDK, a relatively simple two step process).  Go download a copy, give it a try, and let us know what you think! 

If you're attending Oracle OpenWorld this week, we'd love you to come by and see what we've been up to!  We've been very busy preparing for this event and are excited to show you everything we've been working on.  First up on the agenda, Sun's SVP for Client Software, Jeet Kaul, will be giving a talk entitled "Relentless Innovation in Java" at 11:30AM on Monday at the Marriott (Salon 4).  He's promised he'll spend about 50% of the time on demos so it should be a fun and engaging session and you may even see a couple of unreleased product previews.  Don't miss out!

The Java team has a number of other sessions they'll be giving throughout the week, and will also be exhibiting at both Moscone South and the Hilton (Oracle Develop).  For more details on these and other activities, please click here. 

Here are some of the interesting blogs and articles about JavaFX published in the last couple of weeks:

• Ten Interesting Aspects of JavaFX Script

• CJTech - JavaFX Production Suite Screencast  and  JavaFX Production Suite 1.2

•  Amy Fowler's Blog - JavaFX1.2: Understanding Bounds

• Martin Matula's Blog - JavaFX Password Field

• Mark Macumber: JavaFX and RSS

• JavaFX Location and GPS

• SW Seminar: JavaFX - Serving the next Billion

• New on SDN: Applying Custom Fonts

• The Java Posse : What do we want from JavaFX

• Also see: Reviews Interactive - here is a list of Recent JavaFX How-To's and Review Articles

Continuing our collaboration with San Jose State University (SJSU), this week we would like to highlight a project developed by Steven Le who is a 4th year under graduate student pursuing BS in Software Engineering at SJSU. This project was developed under the guidance of Dr. Jerry Gao who is a professor at SJSU and was developed in a span of three days. This goes to show that even students with no prior knowledge of the JavaFX language or design experience could pick up JavaFX and create something really simple and usable. The project being highlighted is a typical Calendar Book with ability to flip pages, add pre-loaded icons for various events such as birthday, meeting, dinner etc, and Inline text editing to add a new appointment. 

• Try the Application
• Source Code ( You can download this and build it using NetBeans) 

 

More about  Steven Le - in his own words :

I'm in my 4th year at SJSU pursuing a BS in Software Engineering. My interests include learning about new technologies, especially in mobile and web development. On the side, I like to mess around with digital design and multimedia type things. Outside of computers, I can enjoy the more active outdoor activities like scuba, water sports, camping, hiking, and sky diving, but most of the time, I'm playing regular sports like basketball and tennis. Basically, I'm just into trying new things.

Sign up as a JavaFX expert at Liveperson.com ! Liveperson.com is the world's largest marketplace for finding and providing expert advice. 

You can solve JavaFX problems and get paid for doing so!  

Decide how much you want to charge, potential customers then check out your credentials, and LivePerson takes care of the rest!  They'll even help you collect your fees before your services have been provided!

Take the JavaFX Survey !  

Help drive the direction of JavaFX training and certification. The JavaFX team is designing a comprehensive curriculum for Java developers. The primary objective of the curriculum is to enable developers to use JavaFX technologies to build rich internet applications. We're looking for your input on the topics and tasks to include in the training.

Survey Closes Sept 16 ! 

For the first time JavaFX was taught as a credited course at San Jose State University this Summer. It was taught by Sun Engineers in collaboration with the Software Engineering department at SJSU. Overall the enrollment was very enthusiastic with over 25 students participating. The course mainly focused on fundamentals of JavaFX scripting language, hands on lab sessions and a final project. This course has given an option to students at SJSU who are pursuing their final year MS to look into JavaFX technology to implement their project work. We will be working with SJSU and any other universities interested in incorporating JavaFX into their teaching curriculum in the coming months.

 

If you are a Netbeans user and you have been waiting to upgrade to 6.7, we have now posted a copy of Netbeans 6.7.1 on JavaFX.com that bundles the JavaFX 1.2 SDK.  If you are interested in see what's new with Netbeans 6.7.1 you can check out the release notes here.  One of the cooler features is Kenai integration enabling the creation and editing of Kenai hosted projects from within the IDE. Another cool feature is the Zembly Web API Gateway making it easy to consume webservices from Amazon,Yahoo, Twitter, etc with just a couple of lines of code.

Or you can just download it and figure it out for yourself!

The winners of the JavaFX Blog Contest have just been announced. Congratulations to all 10 winners! Read these blog entries to learn about Coding an image gallery in JavaFX, learning JavaFX,  Programming games in JavaFX and much more.

 In related news, you can read an interview with Sten Anderson - the JavaFX coding contest winner, and also see what the student winner of the contest has to say. 

 

 

Get a hands-on introduction to JavaFX technology when you play the Tech Test Train, an interactive eLearning game built entirely with JavaFX 1.2 technology. The eLearning game tests your knowledge of the JavaFX technology and provides prescriptive feedback at the end of the game.

The Tech Test Train showcases the many features of JavaFX technology including:

• UI Components and Controls
• Media player
• Animation
• Layout mechanism
• XML parser
• Reuse of Java classes
• XML-based configurable UI
• Dynamic Object Allocation (binding and triggers)

In addition, many graphics used in the game are developed by a Graphic Designer who has exported the graphics into JavaFX-readable format using the JavaFX Production Suite.

Ride the train, answer JavaFX questions, and earn points!

(Reposting an email we received from Sang Shin over the weekend)

The 1st session of the "Free 15-week JavaFX Programming (with Passion!)" online course ended as of today (July 25th, 2009) with participation of ~4000 people.

The 2nd session of the course will start from Aug. 25th, 2009. For registration, all you have to do is to send a blank email to the following email alias

javafxprogramming-subscribe@googlegroups.com

This course runs very much like a regular college course in which the students are expected to do weekly homework after studying the presentation material and doing the hands-on lab but it is free and can be taken online.  There is also class email alias where students can ask/answer questions.

For more information, please go to the course websites below.

Course topics: http://www.javapassion.com/javafx/#Topics
Course website: http://www.javapassion.com/javafx
Course FAQ: http://www.javapassion.com/coursefaq.html

Congrats to Sang Shin and Jim Weaver on a highly successful first session and for all of you that missed out on your first chance to sign up... make sure you register today!

I am very excited to announced that we have posted an early access release of the JavaFX Mobile runtime to enable people to begin developing and running JavaFX applications on real devices!  The runtime package is designed for use with select Windows Mobile handsets and also includes the Sun Java Wireless Client, giving you everything you need to get started today.  While we've tested (and will be supporting) this package on the HTC Diamond and the LG Incite, you may be able to run it on other Windows Mobile devices as well, although your mileage may vary.

If you purchased an JavaFX-enabled HTC Diamond at JavaOne, we recommend that you update your device to this release.  Although not required, you may also want to uninstall your previous release before installing and then make sure you install to "internal storage."  We still have more work to do and will be updating this stack again in the future, but go ahead and grab yourself a copy, have fun, and talk to us about it!

Reviews Interactive recently spoke with JavaFX developer Fabrizio Giudici, a prominent and highly-respected blogger in the JavaFX community who writes regularly for both Java.net and DZone. Fabrizio said he is particularly interested in using JavaFX on mbile devices, which he stated is a great

platform to give applications “all the bells and whistles.” Read more ...

Note: This post is the first in a series of ongoing interviews Reviews Interactive is conducting with product experts who use various Sun technologies and blog about their experiences to both share their insight and examples, as well as help other developers better understand these technologies. Reviews interactive will talk to these experts to discuss new product updates and releases, how they are utilizing the technologies in their current projects, and what they hope to see in the future. 

We are absolutely thrilled that Indaba has launched the Indaba Session Console 2.0 using JavaFX.  Although they started with Flash, they found that JavaFX enabled them to provide their users with a more powerful and more flexible experience.  Some of the top benefits include:

• Play and Record High-quality audio
• Apply audio effects in real-time
• Simplified workflow (record directly into the tool, no need for separate, third party audio recording tools)
• online/offline mode (selecting "save" publishes to cloud