Java applets were the first "programs" to run inside a web browser and for a (little) while they were flavour of the month.
But then along came Flash which had several advantages such as faster load times, consistent loads and antialiased fonts/graphics and soon completely surpassed applets. But the MAIN reason why Flash was initially so successful and went on for years and years of domination is that the Flash tools had an Animation/Timeline Editor pretty much from the beginning. This enabled even a novice to drag images around and draw the path they wanted them to move along, add all sorts of bouncing effects and sounds and the result was the birth of the online greeting card company. But Flash soon went on to be so much more. As the Adobe tools improved, so did the SWFs and soon entire websites were written in Flash. Meanwhile, applet programmers had absolutely nothing remotely similar and had to try (and I stress try) to tediously hand code any animations and transitions and effects and I don't think it ever worked. Fast forward 15-20 years and now we have JavaFX which doesn't need to run in the browser, has even more features than Flash, uses hardware acceleration for superior performance, has a wide range of built-in animations, transitions and effects but STILL we have to hand code any animation/transitions. This is INCREDIBLY inefficient and unless Scene Builder incorporates a powerful, sophisticated animation/transition and effect editor VERY, VERY SOON I fear that the advanced graphics features are never going to be used to their full potential (much to the detriment of JavaFX itself). Does anyone know if one is in the pipeline? I see this as one of the most vital features for the JavaFX ecosystem to achieve more penetration and, eventually, survive. Felix
