Earlier this week, the Gluon team announced that JavaFX 11 GA will be released in the second half of September, close to the release of Java 11. In the meantime, development has begun on JavaFX 12.
JavaFX is the software platform that allows development of desktop Java apps. It comprises a single codebase which consists of code for a rich, interactive UI on many platforms. Users access information from multiple devices so having a single codebase makes it cost-effective. Single codebases are also easy to maintain and interact well with enterprise and cloud services.
It was announced, back in March, that the framework JavaFX would be offered as a separate component and no longer will be a part of the Java SDK. Ever since then, JavaFX has been under development by the community as a stand-alone project called OpenJFX with multiple new developers joining in.
As mentioned in the official Gluon blog post, the reason behind new developers contributing to JavaFX 11 is the fact that GitHub has made it easier for these developers to get started as all they have to do now is “sign the contributor agreement, commit the code — pushed upstream to the official OpenJFX repository on the OpenJDK infrastructure”.
JavaFX 11 is the first release under the umbrella of the OpenJFX open project. Johan Vos, Co-CTO of Gluon, is also co-lead of the OpenJFX project and one of the driving forces behind the advancement of JavaFX.
A JavaFX 11 stabilization repository has been created. This will only be responsible for fixing the blocking issues. Gluon will be handling the release of JavaFX 11. In addition to that, the Gluon team has increased their investment in OpenJFX as they are constantly working on its code.
Development on JavaFX 12 is currently ongoing and the Gluon community is keen on following the same core principles which are: release often, include the ready features. In case of a feature not ready for a particular release, it can be made available in the next release cycle, 6 months away.
Keeping in mind that not all developers are interested in changing versions every six months, Gluon offers JavaFX Enterprise Support, where a Long Term Support version of JavaFX 11 is maintained. On subscribing to this payment mode, you will have access to builds s which have been backported to JavaFX 11.
This is an attempt to make sure that the developers are always using “the latest, feature-rich, stable, well-tested code in their projects They don’t have to wait years for a feature or bug fix to be in a released version. It also allows the OpenJFX developers to work on future versions, and to include new technologies and ideas into the JavaFX code” says the Gluon team.
For more information, check out the official blog post.
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