I agree that no one has done it well… And I don’t expect a visual designer to fire up XMLSpy to edit a config doc. But I do expect to see them draw a design and want to modify behaviors that are difficult to express graphically. I think we both agree that, although neither are inviting, XML is probably more scary than a simple JavaFX syntax. For a programmer, of course, it’s fantastic, as it allow programmatic management of UI config files with minimal effort. And many programmers are talented with hand editing XML files, as they are lingua franca of everything from distributed build environments to editor config files and everything in between. But I continue to believe, based on the UI designers I have met, that the XML approach is additional complexity from their POV.

After trying languages like processing.org, it becomes clear that there are simpler ways to design visual experiences without resorting to the complexities of a modern MVC world. Certainly, you wouldn’t build OpenOffice in Processing (nor in JavaFX), but it’s just a way for some designers to start experimenting with programmatic expression. I doubt it would be as popular if it forced the designer to code in XML.

I agree: JavaFX and Flex are trying. And yes, the separation between business logic and front end design is wonky in all of these languages (and web frameworks and the rest of our modern stack). And maybe we will never hit a world where a really complex app has complete separation of M, V, and C.

But I do see a world where designers can create some pretty good stuff with minimal coding. And I do see a world where that minimal code creates, by default hooks in for a back end to help with the business complexities.

It’s not right now, but languages like JavaFX and Processing are giving hope that we can get there. I don’t think requiring XML is necessarily the right answer for a designer. But if you are correct, then it may be the best way we can get there sooner.

Interesting thoughts you have there. I am not sure I follow you on all of it, though Are you serious, that you think designers in large, will be editing JavaFX code themselves with pleasure? And that this should be any easier than xml? There is lots of syntax in fx too, that must be damned right, for anything to work. There’s nesting too in fx code. Any syntax error in fx code will also break the whole ui.

I haven’t seen one framework yet, which can let a designer do the design in a language and format, that can be integrated with the businesslogic without change. There has been plenty of trials on this, and one that came close was the template system in Tapestry. But it still failed, when ui components was extracted from the the templates, because template preview became broken then.

JavaFX (and Flex) tries too, but they ain’t getting any closer, in my opinion. In theory, a designer should be able to define the ui, and then it should only be a matter of data binding the ui to the code. But this fails for anything larger than a teaspoon.

Thanks for the comment. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for a declarative language for the ui too, but I hate the syntax. To the best of my knowledge, you also define the ui declaratively in flex, just in another syntax, xml.

I know xml has taken a lot of beating lately, especially in the Java world, after annotations came to, that could take some of the configuration elsewhere, which was always done in xml in the past. But for defining a ui hierarchy of components, I have found the xml syntax in flex to be really nice to work with. There *are* areas where xml can be used, and I think this is one of them. Of course, that is just my opinion.

From the reference you linked to, it says:

…JavaFX classes are able to implement Java interfaces just as well as Java classes…

so, it seems fx classes can implement interfaces.

In fact, when designers will be hand editing config code, easy to read JSON would make more sense than XML… but inline simple syntax makes the most sense of all, which is what JavaFX offers. Note that I have not seen a GUI config file using JSON, which might be a fun exercise to try in JavaFX.

I suspect it won’t be long before someone offers an XML module for JavaFX which supplies the same type of structure as the myriad of GUI helpers used for Swing (or the simpler version used for Flex).

I’m with you on tooling. I’d like to see more in this area.

This is because JavaFX does not support interface, therefore JavaFX cannot implement interface, hence multiple inheritance provide the shortfor.

I remember reading something that says how multiple inheritance mechanism in JavaFX be translated and compatible with Java.

You can find some info from this site.
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/scripting/javafx/javafx_and_java/#4

It has its shortcomings for sure – but they’ve (Sun) done a pretty good job so far!

Perhaps you can get more involved in the community to get things really rockin’

Thom