The title of the book says it all: JavaFX 2.0 Introduction by Example. In this book, you will be learning the
new JavaFX 2.0 capabilities by following practical recipe examples. These recipes will, in turn, provide
you with the knowledge needed to create your own rich client applications. In the same tone with Java’s
mantra “Write once, run anywhere,” JavaFX also preserves this same sentiment. Because JavaFX 2.0 is
written entirely in Java the language, you will feel right at home.
Most of the recipes can be compiled and run under Java 6. However, some recipes will take
advantage of Java 7’s language enhancements, so Java 7 will be required. While working through this
book with JavaFX 2.0 and Java 7, you will realize that the new APIs and language enhancements will help
you to become a more productive developer. Having said this, I encourage you to explore all of Java 7’s
new capabilities. To delve deeper into the new capabilities of Java 7, I recommend the book, Java 7
Recipes. On an added note, the recipes in this book can also be found in Java 7 Recipes.
This book covers JavaFX 2.0’s fundamentals, graphics and animations, audio and video, and the
Web. The fundamentals include how to install prerequisite software (JavaFX 2.0, NetBeans 7.1) and
create simple user interfaces. You will also learn the basics of the scene graph, text nodes and font styles,
shapes, colors, layouts, menus, UI controls, simple styling (CSS styling), binding expressions,
background processes, keyboard shortcuts, and dialog boxes. Next, in graphics and animations you will
encounter image handling, drag-and-drop operations, animation APIs, and UI theming (Look ‘n’ Feel).
After graphics and animations, you will learn audio and video. This section will include creating an MP3
player, using a video player, responding to media events, handling media marker events, and
synchronizing an animation with media events. Finally, you will be using JavaFX 2.0 to interoperate with
web technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and XML. In this section, you will be learning how to
embed JavaFX into a web page, rendering and dynamically manipulating HTML5 content, creating a
weather application to respond to HTML events, and creating an RSS feed application using an
embedded database (Derby).
