Hey Jaroslav, very great Statement and very thx for category 3 😊. I like your thinking. Of Course my category is not that big, I totally agree with you but this category could be better, sooner or later. I think the Topics that I already said AND some other stuff like it is not real known that we can create UIs for NetBeans or in Java, Independent from NetBeans with HTML, CSS and JS. Did you know, that you can create plugins for Photoshop or Illustrator with HTML, JS and CSS too? Pure JS, HTML and CSS no bindings with other languages. It is called Adobe Extension builder: https://www.adobe.com/devnet/creativesuite/cs-extension-builder.html So I didn’t know that, until I found a Google entry for that so maybe this is a PR Problem? Could be, only my opinion. If a lot of more People, knows that possibilty, they will do the same as me, I think.
Don’t worry, of Course I will help you to help me to make that stuff for my category better and better. Maybe we can have a skype call one day. Then I can explain my Needs with my NbScratchFile for example. Words to wade again, why I’m not contributing to other platforms like VS Code, because NetBeans is my Development Enviroment, I know it good, not best but I know it. I know that VS Code for example is better for Angular Support or Vue, same as WebStorm or PHPStorm, believe me, they are better, NetBeans is lack of lots of Features which the others already have. I have a big list of tickets that I have to migrate to Jira and a lot that is not written yet, but I will make NetBeans better and better and if I have a better possibility to create UIs with my Technology, I swear I will create more and more. It took me not that Long to create the NbScratchFile v2 plugin with the Knockout UI, because it was very easy. The other part was the bindin to Java, that was also ok. When I tried to create the same with Swing or JavaFX, I know that I will be slower and find more Problems to solve than with my stuff. Cheers Chris Von: Jaroslav Tulach Gesendet: Donnerstag, 15. März 2018 20:03 An: Apache NetBeans Betreff: The Importance of Being Portable was: Think Java, not Electron! Hello guys, thanks again for all your replies. Rather than answering them one by one I'd like to provide following "classification summary". Looks like there are three major streams of opinions: 1. Experienced Swing/FX developers willing/being forced to move closer to Web 2. Experienced Swing/FX developers (sort of) OK with current state 3. Experienced Web developers wishing to code for NetBeans with their technology I belong into the category #1 - while I like Swing and I see its value for development of desktop applications, I know that these days projects don't start with desktop being the primary target. Everyone wants to get to cloud, and the remaining ones want to get mobile. None of that can be done with Swing. Even Zoran admits that he'd like to write his application in a style that would allow him to run it from a web site as well as NetBeans. That (in my opinion) rules Swing out and that is the reason why I designed HTML/Java API & co. The category #3 isn't huge. Why would somebody who have seen "the future" looked back? Why would a Java developer tried to learn COBOL? In spite of that we have one active voice among us - Christian. I am thankful for having him around and I wish him to survive our attacks against JavaScript and HTML well. If we want to move forward with support of HTML(/Java) in NetBeans we need his knowledge of contemporary build and coding practices used by the web developers. The category #2 is surprisingly (to me) huge (I am counting suggestions to use SWT or OpenGL here as well), but there is a truth in such position: Swing and JavaFX are here and they aren't going away. If they work for you, there is no reason to search for something else. They will always continue to work. Knowing the categories, I'd like to offer something to each of you with the goal to keep you motivated to work with us towards a goal you can agree to: The NetBeans Platform roots are built around Swing - e.g. #2 category - and I am 100% sure we want to keep those roots untouched. If you are happy with NetBeans Platform as it is, don't worry - it will continue to work for you. We have a long time track of keeping backward compatibility while moving the system forward (for example the HTML/Java is already in and nothing bad happened), so we can promise that your Swing/FX usecase isn't going to be affected. I am dedicated to move more and more HTML based UI into the system. I have to: I am asked to develop web based solutions and I don't want to write my code twice. I want to write code that works in the web as well as in NetBeans. I am looking at that from a category #1 perspective - e.g. I want Java oriented tools most of the time. On the other hand I understand the desire of Christian to improve the #3 point of view. That shall happen as well: make sure web developers can extend NetBeans without major problems. Hopefully Christian will be able to help with that. Geertjan asked for a vision for the NetBeans Platform, here is one: ideally I want to have a replacement of core.windows module (which organizes Swing based TopComponent, menu and toolbars in a Swing JFrame) with core.htmlwindows reimplementation (that would show a browser and rendered everything - menu, toolbar, components - via browser pipeline). Of course such module would be fully optional. Right now we can mix Swing and HTML based UI next to each other in a JFrame context, with the above module the same shall be possible[1] in an browser-like renderer. It is a long term vision, but if there is enough will, it is not unrealistic to achieve it. In any case, thanks for a lively and inspiring discussion we had so far. -jt [1] There was a request to render Swing in HTML. I am glad to say that I have a Graphics that renders in HTML and I managed to render Visual Library scene this way. The result was 1:1 and the branch of my experiment is here: https://github.com/apache/incubator-netbeans/compare/master...JaroslavTulach:jtulach/PortableVisualLibrary?expand=1 - help with improving the Graphics context to render JButton (for example) is more than welcomed.
