Newbie qs. JavaFx vs Swing?

Question

I looked through the JavaFx introduction and samples, but wish there could be clarification of the following which other developers too might wonder about:
Should I write my app in Swing or Java Fx - what considerations should guide my choice?
It seems that Fx is an alternative or competitor to applets or Google Web toolkit or Flash.
Can you access the file system, work offline?
thanks,
Anil

Answer 1

Yes you're right in that there are many considerations that involved in choosing between JavaFX or Swing (or some other technology) and for the most part a lot of it is just going to come down to opinions rather than hard and fast rules.
First of all, JavaFX applications whether they are deployed as Applets, via Web Start, or with a standalone installer can access the file system, work offline, open sockets etc. The restriction is that if deployed as an Applet or via Web Start the application has to be "signed" and the user has to accept the signed application (click "Yes" on a security warning).
Having said that even unsigned Applets/WebStart applications do have limited access to the file system (a private sandbox) and can open connections back to their originating server. Applets used to be restricted to running in the browser but now they can be dragged out of the browser and "installed" with a shortcut on the users system. The following link provides a good starting point for more information
[http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/index.html]
Always remember that JavaFX sits on top of Java and often leverages tools, products and technologies to achieve tasks.
In terms of Swing vs JavaFX some of the things you might want to consider are:
Tolerance towards new technologies. Is you organisation able to take something "cutting-edge" and is prepared to work around problems or limitations. Or are the stakeholders in the project so risk-adverse that a more mainstream approach would be better.
Willingness to write code. At this stage you will find that Swing has far more components (widgets) available to it, you can somewhat easily reuse Swing components within JavaFX application but you will need to write and maintain extra code to do so. Also there are other gaps in JavaFX where you'll probably need to write extra code like serialization or dealing with medium-complex event handling (action frameworks). More code appears to have more cost but sometimes you also get the benefit of a better fit to your problem.
But then on the other hand JavaFX is a language dedicated to writing GUIs so you can also argue that even with the current relative immaturity having support within the language for "bind" will result in less code than the the same application written in Swing.
What's the lifespan of this project for you organisation? A short-term one-off project might justify the use of JavaFX through it being not strategic to your organisation. But then on the other hand a large long-term project might also justify the use of JavaFX because it's easier to absorb specialists filling in the gaps of JavaFX in a larger team and also you might see how JavaFX is going to be important into the future (obviously a value based opinion).
What level of "graphics" do you want? The Scene graph within JavaFX makes doing "fancy" graphics, video and animation easier than in Swing.
Hope this helps.
- Richard.