Newbie questions about e(fx)clipse [message #1759832] |
Tue, 18 April 2017 10:23 |
Marcelo Ruiz Messages: 80 Registered: April 2017 |
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Hi E(fx)clipse community!
I am very new to E(fx)clipse and I have a few questions. I am used to work with the NetBeans Platform to develop Java+Swing applications, but I need to develop now a pure javafx8 application (so using the hybrid Frankenstein NetBeans Platform + JavaFx is out of the question). I also tried the Griffon application framework and I found the lack of documentation, kind-of-complex approach to testing, and lack of a window system in the framework a bit discouraging (although one of the project leaders is always extremely helpful in the forums). Working with Griffon made me appreciate the flexibility of Gradle, though.
Finally, I am considering E(fx)clipse as an alternative, but I can't find a lot of information about it. My questions are:
- Am I forced to program with Eclipse to use the E(fx)clipse RCP? Can other IDEs that support OSGi be used?
- Does the window system have any limitations compared to what I see in Eclipse?
- Does E(fx)clipse RCP use the same approach than Netbeans RCP mixing Swing/SWT with the JavaFX thread? Does it use FxCanvas as Netbeans uses JFXPanel inside of the Swing TopComponents?
- What I read on the E(fx)clipse website states that it uses JavaFx 2.x, and that left me wondering if this platform will be a suitable candidate to develop with JavaFX 8. Will a pure JavaFx in the platform mix JavaFx 2.2 with JavaFx 8? Am I getting this right? It's a little bit confusing...
- What should I study to be able to program using the platform? I was thinking of geting a book on Eclipse RCP 4, but I don't see anything related to JavaFX in the ones I considered. On Amazon Eclipse Rich Client Platform does not have great reviews. I also saw "Eclipse 4 RCP: The complete guide to Eclipse application development" selling for $2000 and it is out of my price range for books (but for that price I bet it might have the answer to all the questions I might have... hahaha). Seriously, I don't know how different the approach of programming with Eclipse and E(fx)clipse are and I don't want to spend time learning something I won't end up using.
- Are there complete tutorials or an application example available? I have seen articles and videos in YouTube but the applications seem simple and do not use the windowing system for example.
- Is the E(fx)clipse RCP platform suitable for Test Driven Development?
Any other thoughts/suggestions?
Sorry about all the questions and thanks for your help!
Marcelo
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Re: Newbie questions about e(fx)clipse [message #1759919 is a reply to message #1759912] |
Wed, 19 April 2017 23:08 |
Marcelo Ruiz Messages: 80 Registered: April 2017 |
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Hi Christoph!
Thanks for your answer and for taking the time to write back. I really appreciate it: it was very helpful.
I have some follow up questions (and thoughts) that maybe you or someone from the e(fx)clipse team could answer (or comment on).
My ideal situation would be to use Gradle as the build tool, program in Netbeans (I am very used to it, and I tried switching to Eclipse a few times and I it doesn't feel intuitive for me), use JavaFX8 only, and test drive the application.
The two articles regarding the direction of e(fx)clipse were really informative. Thank you for pointing them out to me. It seems that I will be able to use Gradle in the future (but I don't know when). I wish I could start experimenting right now! I was investigating and found a very interesting plugin to use the Eclipse RCP with Gradle that unfortunately seems not to be active anymore: https://github.com/akhikhl/wuff/wiki
Regarding using JavaFx8 only, you answered my question, but I still have a doubt: what about testing the UI? Is there a recommended tool? I read code from an example that uses e(fx)clipse and I noticed they use Jemmy, but it might be an old example. Do you know if TestFX can be used for manipulating the framework components like menus? Is there a recommended tool?
I read the tutorials links you shared. Taking into consideration what I want to do and the fact that I have no experience with Eclipse RCP 4 at all, do you think reading online tutorials will be preferable to reading a book that covers Eclipse RCP 4 (even though not touching developing with JavaFX)?
Finally, thanks to Tom as well for all the hard work (if he ever reads this, he can be sure that I really like his ideas for the future). I hope drag and drop support for the view components, moving tabs to the edges and even outside of the main window will make it in future versions of the platform. I feel they're really important when developing complex applications with many views.
Thanks again,
Marcelo
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Re: Newbie questions about e(fx)clipse [message #1759927 is a reply to message #1759919] |
Thu, 20 April 2017 05:26 |
Dirk Fauth Messages: 2903 Registered: July 2012 |
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Hi,
as Christoph I am also not part of the e(fx)clipse team. But I will also try to answer.
My first question is, do you want to write a plain JavaFX application or an Eclipse 4 RCP application based on JavaFX? From all your statements the second one should be your answer, but I just want to be sure.
From my experience building an E4 application with Gradle is not working very well. I have also seen the wuff project, but to be honest, I don't trust it I suppose it misses several things. And with pom-less Tycho the amount of work to bring up for setting up a build is quite low. Of course that is my personal opinion and I think it would be helpful if other build tools would also support building E4 RCP applications. But as of now I am not aware of other support.
The same is true at the moment for the IDE. The E4 tooling is currently only available in Eclipse AFAIK. So for example the Eclipse model editor is an Eclipse plugin and not available for other IDEs. I'm not sure if Tom plans to port that to Netbeans or IntelliJ.
I understand that you want to use the IDE you are used to, but if you want to start with Eclipse 4 RCP with JavaFX now, I think you need to look at Eclipse and e(fx)clipse.
Regarding the testing, IIRC there was some discussion for using TestFX. The official integration has stopped because of licensing issues. But in the end after rendering you have a JavaFX application, so I think usage of TestFX should be possible. But I haven't tested that yet.
Regarding the books on Eclipse 4, well actually I liked Eclipse 4 Rich Client Platform. But it is true that books written some time ago does not match the current state of development sometimes. But the basic concepts (and more) should be covered. Typically only the sceenshots and some tab names should have changed. Nothing you are not able to clarify on trying out. That is btw the same for blogs or tutorials in the internet. It is not possible for every author to keep these kind of things up to date all the time. The online tutorials which are part of the book are typically more up-to-date. So sometimes combining the book with his online tutorials are the match to go on: http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/eclipse.html
I have written some tutorials some years back to get started with E4 and then migrate to e(fx)clipse. So you get an understanding of E4 and then see what is different with e(fx)clipse. But they are also outdated. Maybe worth to look at, but you will definitely need to do some transition to get to the current state of development:
https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2015/02/eclipse-rcp-cookbook-basic-recipe/
https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2015/02/swt-javafx-migration-eclipse-rcp-cookbook/
Regarding the migration to JavaFX Christoph has written a tutorial that is more up to date, but also outdated compared to the current state. My blog post was on e(fx)clipse 1.2 and his already on the 2.0 state: http://www.kware.net/?p=64
So his tutorial shows the settings needed with the 2.x line.
I hope that helps a bit.
Greez,
Dirk
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