Hi Alan, Now it makes a bit more sense ;-)
Yes, you can achieve what you want but JavaFX doesn't really come into the equation. It's certainly going to be a challenge! I write a Java desktop app that uses video codecs from the open source FFMPEG library and runs on Windows, Mac OS X (Intel and PPC), Linux and Solaris (Intel and SPARC). The native interface is written using JNI although I've looked at JNA and it looks like a sound option to me. Unfortunately I wrote our native interface before JNA came about and I think we would incur a performance hit if we were to switch now. What I would say is that it's not easy but it is doable, and the cost is probably less than learning a new language and development environment! The biggest problems I have had were getting the JNI calls right in the first place, compiling FFMPEG for all the different platforms and figuring out how to call native libraries from applets (which we also support across all the platforms). Good luck, and feel free to get in touch if you have specific questions! Craig On Jan 20, 6:43 pm, Alan Kent <[email protected]> wrote: > [email protected] wrote: > > ...so I guess the obvious > > question no-one has asked yet is why do you want to create a Java > > application and not a native one? ... > > First, thanks everyone for the information so far. > > I was trying to keep the original post short, so I left out details. I > have two situations: > > * A server process that we want to run on Windows and Linux - we use > Wrapper at present for this, but I was interested to see if "the > entire JavaFX desktop development environment" made Wrapper > unnecessary. I think the answer is "some external software like > wrapper is still needed" > * A LiveScribe pen application (my primary interest) > > I have been playing a bit with the LiveScribe pen SDK. You can write > penlets using J2ME that run inside the pen. They have not yet released > full details on their application development model (I am asking > questions and getting drip fed information). That is, the stuff that > would run on the desktop. They have a Windows and a Mac version of the > desktop. They have said "applications will be stand-alone" and "we will > provide a C/C++ API on Windows applications can call". Overnight I just > got some more information indicating that even though "stand-alone", > they will do the installer which I had not expected - not sure now > exactly what "stand-alone" means to them. So I am no longer sure if I > need Windows services integration, or whether they are going to launch > application code when the desktop starts up, or... > > I was interested in doing the application in Java for several reasons: > > * If Java wants more footing on the desktop, this felt like part of > the total problem to be solved > * I know Java - I don't know Windows UI development (yes I can learn it) > * I do know C++, but have only done server work (no Windows UI) > * I want to move the application to Mac later too (assuming > LiveScribe provide a similar API) - I had hoped using Java would > make porting later easier > * Since the penlet is written in Java, it made sense to me to write > the other side in Java. I prefer sticking to one environment on > one project if I can. E.g. I can share data structure definitions > for transferring between the pen and the desktop, I don't have to > have Eclipse and Visual Studio running at the same time on my poor > little laptop, etc. > * It was a good reason to look into JavaFX more seriously, but I > found the comment about "not that good yet for normal forms" > interesting (and consistent from limited browsing I had done). > > Re JavaFX: The recent RIA roundup podcast released talked (back in March > last year) about how Sun might go after the customer base they already > have first, in Swing - it looks like this is not the case if JavaFX is > not (yet) a serious Swing application replacement. > > Thanks again, > Alan --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
