adam bien's blog

Java FX Composer / Designer for NetBeans 6.8 - First Smoke Test 📎

  1. Installation: smooth and fast directly from the Tools -> Plugins (don't forget to click the "Reload Catalog" button in the plugin manager). It takes about 30 seconds - you don't even have to restart NetBeans 6.8!
  2. Usability: similar to NetBeans Matisse (Swing GUI designer). A WYSIWYG designer for UIs with Source / Designer views. The resulting code is more concise, comparing it to matisse. The generated code cannot be modified in the editor manually - very similar to matisse.
  3. Generated code: actually clean and concise. It uses coordinates for the FX Nodes - so it works well. 
  4. Data Sources: Java FX composer comes with JDBC, HTTP (XML / JSON), FileSystem and File datasources, as well as nested Filters. The Java FX code is generated into a directory and is o.k. 
  5. States: an interesting vehicle for designing state transitions between states. State transition can be initiated by e.g. actions / events. Handy for navigations and designing the state changes between scenes.
  6. Data Binding: most (all?) components properties can be visually bound. Interesting: there are already built-in converters in place which helps you to convert String -> String[] or (DataSource) Records -> String[]. You can e.g. bind easily a JSON services to a list component. Binding a JSON/REST datasource to a ListView is possible in seconds. XML and other formats seem not to be supported right now.
  7. Templates: are an interesting way to scaffolding. E.g. the Desktop Form template makes the generation of a business form easier.