Re: Apache proposal for NetBeans

The status of Swing vs. JavaFX was well summarized by user cp7781 on the nbusers mailing list not too long ago (quoted under). JavaFX was invented as a competitor to Flash. Meanwhile, however, the use cases for Flash disappeared as people started adopting HTML5/CSS/JavaScript. Flash is now dead--and by extension, JavaFX is likely to suffer the same fate.

Boris likes the idea of a "UI skinnable with css", and rightly points out that "users expect stylish views, adaptable to changing fashion". But for these kinds of apps, browser-based web apps are now the standard solution, and probably the way forward. (Java is still a great platform for writing the server-side stuff.)

At the same time, there are still valid use cases for desktop applications. Desktop applications, however, are expected to look and feel like other desktop applications on the same platform, whether the user is running Windows, MacOS, or Linux.  A button, a combobox, or a context menu looks the same whether you're running Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Photoshop, Sibelius<http://www.avid.com/sibelius>, or Tableau<http://www.tableau.com/>. For these kinds of applications, Swing serves a use case that is neither served by JavaFX nor HTML5--providing a platform-specific Look & Feel out of the box. And Swing is still being<http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/awt-dev/2016-October/date.html> updated<http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/swing-dev/2016-October/date.html> to keep the Look & Feels up to date with newest OS versions.

If you actually want a desktop application that does _not_ look like other desktop applications, one option is to write a web app but host the server locally. This approach is taken for instance by Trifacta<https://www.trifacta.com/> and R Studio<https://www.rstudio.com/>. That also gives you the option to run the app either as a desktop app or a web-hosted app.

-- Eirik
(Developer of SIEUFERD<http://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/sieuferd/>, a graphical database explorer built on the NetBeans Platform.)

On 8/1/16, 11:29 AM, "cp7781" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

First they had AWT, which wasn't exactly satisfying after they discovered some issues with its design. Then they made Swing, which derived from AWT and is the standard up to this day.

Somewhere after Swing they discovered, that applets in websites aren't nearly as good as Flash. And at this time they were really trying to be important in every technological mainstream aspect you can think of. So, JavaFX was invented to get up close. But during the development phase of that new library the people seemed to start to dislike Flash and applets. And as a result, the guys who made JavaFX were trying to target for the Desktop.

Then came the financial collapse of Sun Microsystems, and a damage containment program done by Oracle. And JavaFX? Well, it is there. Sort of. Maybe as a reminder.

I wasn't directly involved in all this. It's just an opinion on the things that have happened.


From: Boris Heithecker <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Reply-To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 4:40 AM
To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: [platform-dev] Re: Apache proposal for NetBeans


Hi Geertjan,

just another few suggestions, ideas, questions - a littler later now, but nevertheless:

One issue with the current state of the platform is incomplete support for OSGi. If this is relevant for others too, one possible thing to do could be adding full support for modules installed as OSGi bundles - first of all in the updater and also full support to lauch the platform natively as an OSGi bundle in Apache Felix itself. It's pity now that the "build-osgi" ant task has a bug, which has not been fixed for over a year. It fails, if any piece of java 8 code is present in the sources, see the bug report here: https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=250440.

As to JavaFX, I don't have much experience with it, but from what has been posted on this thread, wouldn't it be really worth adapting the platform? I personally like the idea that the UI is skinnable with css. Users expect stylish views, adaptable to changing fashion. But, most important for me, if Oracle has decided not to develop Swing any further, would it really be a good think not to follow and port to JavaFX?

So I envision a rich client framework based on JavaFX which is fully compliant with OSGi (in fact, it should be launched by default on Apache Felix) and provides all the other functionality that the platform provides now. Shouldn't it be possible to raise funds for this project? Maybe it's worth considering to start with the basic application framework instead of transforming the whole IDE (i.e. step 1: start a small JavaFX-OSGi-NetBeans platform fork, step 2: adapt the editor structure, step 3: port the IDE)? I don't know the actual amount of work that needed to be done, but to my experience, a great deal of the platform functionality is well isolated from the UI, which should be a base requirement for a not-too-difficult adaption (to be precise, i reuse the lookup and filesystems / layer configuration functionality within a java ee container).

Boris

2016-09-27 19:53 GMT+02:00 Peter Blemel <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:

Hi,


I have been building RCP apps for a long time, and although I've been pretty quiet on the mailing lists I can help contribute in the future.


I got a new laptop with a high res display at work. I had to tweak the Netbeans configuration using a workaround I found to get both the IDE and my RCP apps to display in a sane way, but I have problems dragging the app window between the laptop display and an external display in Win10.  I think the problem is actually in Windows itself, because I have a couple of other apps that don't "like" to be drug between the laptop and external displays either.  Toolbar button graphics (etc) are definitely going to be needing some work moving ahead,  but my app looks fine for the most part.


Anyway, I wouldn't mind pitching in to help fix issues.


Peter


________________________________
From: Eirik Bakke <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 7:17 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [platform-dev] Re: Apache proposal for NetBeans

Hi, Geertjan.

I'm excited to hear about the Apache proposal. For one thing, I can't wait to see the NetBeans sources in git! :-)

The NetBeans Platform serves as one of the best GUI toolkits available for making native-looking desktop applications that run on both Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Being Swing-based, it is also extremely well-suited for integration with "high-tech" custom components (like this<http://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/sieuferd/index.html> spreadsheet-like interface from my PhD project). These things are a real differentiator compared to, say, Eclipse/SWT, JavaFX, .NET, or HTML5.

Maintaining the NetBeans Platform as a leading toolkit for building native-looking desktop apps requires that platform applications look and feel good on all the supported platforms. One area that still needs work is better support for retina/HiDPI screens, which have been standard on many MacBooks for years and are starting to appear on Windows as well. IntelliJ has already updated their IDE to support this, as have the big desktop application suites like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite. There are a lot of little things to fix wrt. retina/HiDPI; see bugzilla<https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239745>. I also have a small list of other unrelated issues.

I'd be happy to try to contribute some bugfixes in the future.

-- Eirik

On 9/24/16, 10:23 AM, "geertjan wielenga" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:


Excellent. That's great to hear, Steven.

We're now trying to draw up as complete a list of contributors as
possible, see it near the end of the proposal here:

https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/NetBeansProposal

What kind of contributions would you be interested in providing for the
future Apache NetBeans?

Do you have concrete areas you'd like to work on? Or specific areas
where you'd like to fix bugs?

If so, would be great to add you to the list of contributors -- as well
as anyone else on this list who is reading this and would like to get
involved!

Would be great to be able to make use of all the NetBeans API knowledge
that we have built up amongst ourselves on this mailing list -- anyone
is free to drop me a mail or respond to this one with ideas for how you
might like to get involved in this upcoming Apache project around NetBeans.

Thanks,

Gj

On 13-9-2016 21:27, Steven Yi wrote:
For what it's worth, I find the proposed changes very inviting and
find myself more interested now to make contributions than I had in
the past.  I do have a small dream that a Github-based system can be
worked out, one similar to Apache Groovy.  Assuming the project will
be accepted for incubation, I look forward to following the transition
and looking at opportunities to contribute.

Many thanks to Sun, Oracle, and all involved to bring Netbeans this
far, and best wishes for where Netbeans goes from here!

steven


On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 3:03 PM, Matthias Bläsing
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hey,

Am Dienstag, den 13.09.2016, 10:36 +0200 schrieb geertjan wielenga:
Here's the proposal published over the past hour:

https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/NetBeansProposal

Take note of the many initial committers, which includes James
Gosling (father of Java), a range of developers from various
organizations, as well as a big group from Oracle.
Broadening and simplifying the netbeans contribution process is very
good and it looks as if the general response is positive. I hope this
is not just to write off netbeans silently, that would be a shame.

One think that should be carefully taken care is making sure the
current contributers are included in the effort. The initial committer
list for example does not cover the current committers to the netbeans
codebase (or at least not the complete list).

Hoping for a bright future for netbeans (Apache or not)

Matthias





--
Boris Heithecker


Dr. Boris Heithecker
Lüneburger Str. 30
28870 Ottersberg
Tel.: 0 42 05/ 31 58 34