Printable and Graphics in JavaFX - future strategy?

Question

Hi all,
I need JavaFX for a business application that requires reporting, printing and also a print preview. What would be the best approach for creating complex layouts (text, tables, graphics, images, graphs, various fonts etc.), having the application display a (WYSIWYG!-)print preview and printing them, just as displayed in the preview?
In Swing, I resort to the Printable/Pageable API and the Graphics/Graphics2D classes - all AWT classes. As far as I can see, JavaFX is not related to AWT in any way. So, can anyone point out how to implement such requirements using JavaFX for the UI - and for createing the print layout?
Some details on my motivation:
1) The API of JavaFX would be great for implementing complex layouts.
2) Using two different graphics APIs & layers (JavaFX + AWT) does not seem to make sense to me. And, AFAIK JavaFX is not only meant to replace Swing, but likewise AWT.
3) The most important: Printing support is a "must-have", maybe even mission critical.
Recently, I talked about JavaFX with decision makers at a development company. They make several business applications, built on Java, with several thousands of customers. They asked repeatedly for printing support. They said, customers keep asking how to print all those nice diagrams. They just want to print what the see. The want it, just like they want to print web pages from a browser. And, in a browser, they can - and in JavaFX they cannot (so it seems). At present, that makes JavaFX a difficult topic for decision makers ... :-(
I would be very glad about opinions, hints and - if possible - some info concerning printing from the JavaFX team :-)
Best regards,
R. Rohm
Edited by: r.rohm on 03.04.2012 09:06

Answer 1

the viewer components are Swing components, which would require the application to be a swing application (since I cannot embed a Swing component in a JavaFX app.) - correct?I used a Swing pdf viewer in a JavaFX application.
When I wanted to display a pdf, I just invoked the main method on the Swing pdf viewer which created a Swing JFrame and it all seemed to just work. Of course, it isn't an officially supported integration point. As long as the Swing portions of the app are being rendered in their own JFrame rather than a JavaFX managed Stage and you are careful about any threading callback issues, then displaying a Swing based report from a JavaFX app seems like it should be pretty straight-forward and a pretty quick and low-risk solution.
http://java.net/projects/pdf-renderer
http://java.net/projects/pdf-renderer/sources/svn/content/trunk/demos/viewer/com/sun/pdfview/PDFViewer.java?rev=140
http://code.google.com/p/willow-browser/