According to industry publications, Sun is slated to enter the RIA scripting space with the announcement of JavaFx Script at Tuesday morning's opening JavaOne keynote. JavaFx Script will target desktop, web, and mobile devices. The language leverages the Java2D and Swing API's and features a declarative programming model. Sun officials have noted that what is being announced is an alpha release with a general release date yet to be set. From News.com:
...JavaFX will be open sourced. "We plan to open-source all of JavaFX as we work through the program," said Green. Plans call for eventually offering a line of developer tools to work with JavaFX with a basic, introductory tool to be offered on Tuesday, [Sun's Rich] Green said...Early coverage has not indicated if the JavaFX Script initiative will also include a more structured push of the Java runtime by Sun similar to the efforts of Adobe with Apollo and Microsoft with Silverlight. ZDNet's Ed Burnette has also:
Statements from Sun executives so far indicate that it will rely on the user already having installed the Java SE/ME runtime. For mobile devices this won't be a problem because when you buy a phone it will come with Java already installed. But for desktop users this might mean a 50MB download and frequent updates, a strategy that has failed in the past. Sun claims a "high-volume distribution of Java", but on the desktop the versions that people have installed are all over the place. By contrast, Flash installs are "frictionless" with no user questions, no scary security warnings, and usually not even a need to restart the browser (let alone the whole computer). Hopefully the Java deployment story on the desktop will be addressed by future developments and by deals such as the one Canonical and Sun worked out earlier to get Java installed with Ubuntu Linux.
News.com is also reporting that Sun also intends to announce the JavaFX Mobile product as well:
...To address compatibility problems with mobile phones, Green is scheduled to detail JavaFX Mobile, a package aimed at mobile-handset makers designed to make Java applications more portable across mobile phones...
JavaFX Mobile is built on technology acquired earlier this year with their purchase of SavaJe.
InfoWorld has indicated that JavaFx Script is a rebranding of the internal Sun F3 project. F3 creator Chris Oliver started writing publicly about the language last fall. An early entry showed the declarative structure of the language in use creating a frame object:
Frame {
visible: true
content: Canvas {
content: Mouse1d {
width: 200
height: 200
}
}
}
In the months that have followed Oliver has detailed using F3 to easily recreate popular UI's previously developed in Flash, OpenLaszlo, and Ajax.
