2.1 Deployment Quick Start

Mastered JavaFX basics and have your application ready? Now want to learn what to do to publish it?

Here is all you have to do:

• Decide how you want to deploy the application.

• Use JavaFX tools to create the application package.

• If you plan to embed the application in a web page, update your HTML page to include the generated JavaScript snippet.

• Copy the package to the place you want to deploy it.

• You are done.

If you would like to try these steps in packaging one of the tutorial applications in the JavaFX Getting Started series using the NetBeans IDE, see the page on basic deployment and try out any of the tutorials.

2.2 Write Once, Deploy Anywhere

The same JavaFX application can be used in multiple execution environments including:

• Launching a desktop application

• Launching from the command line using the Java launcher

• Launching by clicking a link in the browser to download an application

• Viewing in a web page when opened

2.3 Application Package

By default, all of the JavaFX packaging tools generate the following collection of files needed to run the application:

• An application JAR file (or multiple JAR files for large applications)

• A JNLP file with a deployment descriptor

  A deployment descriptor is an XML file that describes application components, platform requirements, and launch rules.

• An HTML file containing JavaScript code to embed or launch JavaFX content from the web page

For the Colorful Circles application from the JavaFX Getting Started tutorials, the basic package consists of these files:

• ColorfulCircles.jar

• ColorfulCircles.jnlp

• ColorfulCircles.html

2.4 Packaging Tools

There are three different tools that you can use to package your application:

• NetBeans IDE

• Ant Tasks

• JavaFX Packager Command-Line Tool

The HTML page generated by default is a simple test page for your application. It includes sample JavaScript code to launch and embed your application, which you can copy to your own web page. To avoid manual copying, consider using HTML templates for application packaging to insert these code snippets into an existing web page. For more information, see Section 5.7.4, "Web Page Templates."

For more information about JavaFX packaging, see Chapter 5, "Packaging Basics."

<taskdef resource="com/sun/javafx/tools/ant/antlib.xml"      
        uri="javafx:com.sun.javafx.tools.ant"
        classpath="${javafx.sdk.path}/lib/ant-javafx.jar"/>
 
<fx:jar destfile="dist-web/ColorfulCircles.jar">
    <fx:application mainClass="colorfulcircles.ColorfulCircles"/>
    <fileset dir="build/classes/">
        <include name="**"/>
    </fileset>
</fx:jar>
 
<fx:deploy width="800" height="600" outdir="dist-web" 
        outfile="ColorfulCircles" nativeBundles="all">
    <fx:info title="Colorful Circles"/>
    <fx:application name="Colorful Circles example"
            mainClass="colorfulcircles.ColorfulCircles"/>
    <fx:resources>
        <fx:fileset dir="dist-web" includes="ColorfulCircles.jar"/>
    </fx:resources>
</fx:deploy> 

 

javafxpackager -makeall -appclass colorfulcircles.ColorfulCircles 
    -name "Colorful Circles" -width 800 -height 600

2.5 User Experience

Users are easily annoyed if they are unable to start an application, do not understand what are the next steps, or perceive the application as slow or hung and for many other reasons.

Default JavaFX packaging takes care of many problem areas including:

• Ensuring the user has the required JRE and JavaFX installed

• Auto installing missing dependencies or offering to install them as needed

• Providing visual feedback to the user while the application is being loaded

• Showing descriptive error messages

For example, when users do not have JavaFX installed and double-click the JAR file for your application, they see a dialog box explaining that they need to download and install the JavaFX Runtime.

Moreover, developers have a wide range of options on how to tune the experience for their users, such as:

• Customize the messaging (for example explain to users why they need to install JavaFX Runtime in a language other than English)

• Show your own splash screen and use a custom loading progress indicator

• Switch to alternative content if the user's system is not capable of running JavaFX applications

For example, you could pass the following string as a value of the javafx.default.preloader.stylesheet parameter to add a company logo to the default preloader:

".default-preloader { -fx-preloader-graphic:url
('http://my.company/logo.gif'); }"

In Example 2-3, the text in bold shows what must be changed in the Ant code used to deploy the ColorfulCircles example.

<fx:deploy width="800" height="600"
        outdir="dist-web" outfile="ColorfulCircles">
    <fx:info title="Colorful Circles"/>
    <fx:application name="Colorful Circles example"
            mainClass="colorfulcircles.ColorfulCircles">
        <fx:param  name="javafx.default.preloader.stylesheet"
            value=".default-preloader 
                { -fx-preloader-graphic: url('http://my.company/logo.gif'); }" />
    </fx:application>
    <fx:resources>
        <fx:fileset dir="dist-web" includes="ColorfulCircles.jar"/>
    </fx:resources>
</fx:deploy> 
 

See the following chapters for more information and examples:

• Chapter 4, "Application Startup"

• Chapter 7, "Deployment in the Browser"

• Chapter 9, "Preloaders"

2.6 Getting the Most Out of the Execution Environment

Different execution environments have different specifics, and taking these specifics into account can help to make an application more natural and powerful when run in this execution environment.

One specific could be a unique feature that is not applicable to other environments, for example that applications embedded in a web page can use JavaScript to communicate to the host web page. Another specific could be an important peculiarity such as a presized stage that is provided to a JavaFX application embedded into a web page.

Example 2-4 shows an example of using JavaScript to go to a new page:

final HostServices services = getHostServices();
JSObject js = services.getWebContext();
js.eval("window.location='http://javafx.com'");

See the following pages for more information and examples:

• Chapter 3, "Application Execution Modes"

• Chapter 8, "JavaFX and JavaScript"

• Chapter 9, "Preloaders"

2.7 Deploying Swing and SWT Applications with Embedded JavaFX Content

If you are developing Swing applications with embedded JavaFX content, then you must follow deployment scenarios for Swing applications and applets (see the Swing tutorial for tips on coding).

While most of the techniques discussed in this guide are not directly applicable to Swing application with JavaFX content some of them are:

• You can use the same packaging tools to package your Swing applications.

• You can use the Deployment Toolkit to embed your Swing applet into a web page or launch it from a web page.

• Your application can be bundled and packaged as an installable package, using the same technique as for self-contained JavaFX applications.

For more information, see Chapter 10, "JavaFX in Swing Applications".

SWT applications with embedded JavaFX content are deployed in the same manner as Swing applications, but the SWT library must be included as a resource. For an example of deploying an SWT-JavaFX application, see JavaFX Interoperability with SWT.