I have been struggling with Xcode 3, and decided to jump directly to Xcode 4.
However, a big problem is that there is very little support like articles, videos, and projects I can use as templates.
Does there exist support like this at all?
Can I use Xcode 3 projects as templates?
Would it be easy to work from Xcode 3 tutorials?
I have now been using it for one day. Some things in the interface designer are quite different. For example, I can't get to subviews in the tab bar control (but mostly I manage, and can follow examples).
Thanks.
I'm doing the same thing. Xcode 4 is in pre-release, so there's not much in the way of tutorials while the tools are in a semi-NDA limbo and could be changed significantly before final release.
I highly recommend reading tutorials (I'm working my way through Aaron Hillegass' books on iPhone and OSX development) that use Xcode 3, and allowing extra time for learning where to map across to the new version.
Xcode 4 is much better organised, so it can be annoying but not impossible to find what you are looking for fairly quickly.
Resources you should go to first:
WWDC10 sessions 307, 308 and 315:
Introducing Xcode 4,
Developing your app with Xcode 4, and
Using Interface Builder in Xcode 4.
Access these through the developer portal. They are the definitive Apple guide to the new design and workflow.
In the Xcode 4 Help menu, the Xcode 4 Transition guide is the second choice. I skimmed it, then kept coming back to dive into topics when they came up.
Xcode 4, despite being "released", is an absolute disaster. I would wait for at least a couple of updates (beyond 4.01) before moving to it.
Basic functionality is severely broken. Breakpoints, syntax highlighting, basic functionality in the Interface Builder IU... I don't even know where to begin.
The document management, which was the towering defect of Xcode's design up to this point, has been changed but sadly not fixed. It might even be worse.
At first I had some good impressions. Early notes:
More-sensible defaults for debugging hotkeys.
There's now "Close project" in the File menu!
You can finally set up sounds for lots of build & search events, with a GUI. Nice.
There's a drop-down that shows files that are associated with the one you're editing. This might be useful, but any convenience this might add is ruined by the fact that there's no quick "counterpart" button like there used to be. You have to dig through a menu to go from header to source or vice versa.
Tabs are upside down, extending off the toolbar (WTF). Also, the "X" to close indicator is missing from each tab unless you roll over the tab. This kind of Easter-egg UI hides information from the user and should be abolished.
The tabs don't work well for a couple of reasons. First, there can be two editing panes under one tab with different documents; the tab only shows the name of one of them. You also can't move documents between panes, which you often want to do when referring to different objects and interfaces. Visual Studio solves both of those problems easily by having separate tab groups above each editing pane and letting you drag documents between the two groups.
A second editing pane is always referred to (and indicated in the toolbar) as an "Assistant" editor even if you didn't invoke the assistant (which is bafflingly denoted by a Batman icon button).
View options are under View, where they belong, instead of being incorrectly placed under the Window menu.
If you're typing a call to a function and you're using another function call as a parameter, Xcode's auto-completion appears to automatically prefer functions whose return type matches the parameter you're filling out. EXCELLENT.
But there are bugs aplenty. So many that it's very hard to get work done at times.
One particularly infuriating bug is Xcode's failure to indicate when and where it has stopped at a breakpoint. In many instances, it will stop and pull up the source file, but there's no execution point highlighted. The editor just shows the top of the file, and nothing happens as you step through. The current line is not highlighted, and nowhere does Xcode say, "Stopped at breakpoint." It just says "running."
There's no way to sort files your files in the treeview. NONE. Xcode 3 was bad enough in not sorting them automatically, making you go and sort them over and over and over through the life of a project. Now that's not even an option. WTF?
Xcode leaves your editor window littered with error highlights and messages even after you've fixed the code and recompiled. It turns out that these errors apply to a different target, even though you never built that target and the code they're complaining about doesn't exist anymore.
Xcode will overwrite your syntax-highlighting choices for specific symbol types. You can change them again and again, and Xcode will overwrite your settings inexplicably. You can watch it happen.
THERE'S NO "BUILD" BUTTON IN THE TOOLBAR, AND YOU CAN'T ADD ONE. In fact, the toolbar is not customizable at all, and there's only a "Run" button. What if you don't want to run? Yep, you have to look up the hotkey.
What did they do with all the extra space in the toolbar? Made the project-config dropdown NARROWER. It's so small that it can't show you WTF you're working on. Meanwhile, there's a vast strip of empty space right next to it. Unbelievable.
The Xcode team tried to clean up the mess that was project settings, adding the concept of "schemes." It's mostly an improvement, but buggy. But I'm out of time for this update...
I am not sure what kind of documentation they give you with Xcode 4, however there should be something in the help menu I imagine. WWDC also had a video on Xcode 4, it was their "State of Union" address. Here is a link to the iTunes videos.
Just to add to Luke's point, it all depends on how much code you know. I am going to stick with V3 as compile errors etc are not automatically fixed and I want to learn how the code works, this is going to help in the future.
Current tutorials (mostly about V3) will help you grasp the basics of Xcode, as V4 is easier overall but understanding the basics is the most important aspect.
Localization seems to be pretty significantly broken in 4.0, with constant crashes for me.
I would wait for 4.0.2, or something..
I just switched back to 3.2.6 after I tried out XCode 4. It has so many bugs and crashes, it was too frustrating. Also its updates are not included in the normal apple updates, you have to re install the whole software via the installer. Its ridiculous! Although the git integration and drop down syntax completion is cool, I think I will wait till 4.0.3 before updating again!
Related
My breakpoints have stopped working properly in the latest XCode 4 release. With no change to the project settings, the breakpoints no longer break at the line they are set.
For instance, in one function I can set a breakpoint anywhere within it's body, but the code will always break at the last line of the function.
In another instance, I can set a breakpoint anywhere in one function and the code will break at a line in the middle of a different function in the same file! Tracing through after the break shows that it did break in the wrong place and it's not just a file / debugger sync issue.
I have no idea why this has started. It did however seem to start on new breakpoints while old ones worked. Any new breakpoints I add break in the wrong place. And recently, some files now don't even break at all! I can only assume the breakpoint is so wrong it's moved into code that's not called. I have done numerous internet searches and forum searches for this problem, and although I have found people with similar issues, there was either no solution or the solution listed (rebooting device, swapping debug output, turning off optimization etc.) haven't worked for me.
It is worth mentioninig I'm mostly coding in C++ using .mm files. For the past year of development in XCode 3, and for the last few months in XCode 4 things have been fine! I have debug set up correctly. No optimization on a debug run, no dead code stripping and I'm using the LLVM compiler 2.0 with DWARD with dSYM debug file. However, changing these values makes no difference.
Please help, it's driving me mad!!
An update to this. It's started happening again on a brand new machine with a fresh Lion and xcode install. The whole editor is out of whack. Example below of the errors appearing on the wrong lines.
From what I've read all around, Xcode tend to get confused with breakpoints and the way to get rid of the out-of-sync problem is to clean the "Derived Data"; two ways of cleaning it so far I've found (instructions are valid for Xcode 4.x) :
a) go in the organiser, under the Projects, choose your project and hit that delete on the Derived Data
or
b) go in the Product menu, hold the ALT button on the keyboard and observe that the menu are changing... so the clean transform to "Clean Build Folder..."
With-in "Build Settings" under the project target change the "Optimization Level" for "Debug" to "None".
I found that this fixed the issue for me.
I have fixed this, although I haven't found the root cause.
I removed the references from the project for the files that were not working with breakpoints. I then did a full clean and went into the folders and deleted any build and temporary data. I then opened the project bundle and deleted all data except for the project file itself. I then compiled so it threw up errors due to the missing files. I then put the files back in the project.
Now, the exact same files work fine with breakpoints!
No idea why but happy it's fixed.
Have you cleaned your targets? Shift-Cmd-K.
This started happening to me after I upgraded to XCode 4. I just deleted all breakpoints, did a clean, then re-added my breakpoints. Seems to work OK now.
I have figured out why this happens now. As mentioned in one of the replies you can fix it by deleting the derived data. This will always fix the problem. The editor for some reason loses it's relationship between the source code and the markup of the code it uses to cross reference breakpoints and errors etc. Deleting the derived data forces it to recreate this.
I believe that this only happens with files using C or C++ code. Apple seem to ignore C++ developers on iOS. I know a lot of professional game developers and every single one uses C++ to write games. Apple's lack of support is annoying.
I've got this very odd bug that appears to be a quirk in Visual Studio 2010: Sometimes, when moving the cursor into double quotes of a CSS style="" attribute the cursor refuses to move. I can't type anything, and the keys that respond are the UP/DOWN cursor keys and the DEL key (but not BACKSPACE).
Typing does nothing, but pushing LEFT/RIGHT on the cursor keys produces the following error:
The operation could not be completed
I've got no idea what's causing this, but I would hazard a guess that Intellisense is getting very confused and bugging out.
At the moment, whenever this happens, I have to write any CSS outsite of the double quotes of the style attribute and then place the cursor where I want the CSS to appear (using the mouse) and press CTRL-V to paste it in. Very annoying :(
There must be a way of fixing this problem...?
Hopefully someone has an answer!
Just encountered the issue in VS 2012, in editing C#.
I noticed that the problem had occurred soon after the trial period of Resharper has ended and i inserted a valid license number. It also happened in only some of the source files.
The solution: Tools->Options->Resharper: Suspend.
Try typing - should work now.
Then: Tools->Options->Resharper: Resume.
Problem gone.
I have encountered this using Visual Studio 2013 and Resharper 8.2.1. None of the solutions provided in this thread worked (even suspending and resuming Resharper)
After contacting JetBrains support, it turned out to be a caching issue.
Deleting all the files from the following directory solved the issue, as Resharper re-creates new caches:
C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\JetBrains\ReSharper\v8.2\SolutionCaches\[Project_reference]
I have some odd issues with the editor occasionally, a workaround for me is:
Ctrl-Tab (x2) to another code file and back to the same code (or alt tab to another app and back, one of these two... can't replicate issue to be sure)
An ultimate solution might be a re-install.
Microsoft have had variations on this problem reported quite a few times via their support portal. Here is one post and if you scroll down you will see a comment with a bunch of other reports all detailing similar(ish) problems.
Microsoft doesn't seem to be able to reproduce the problem but are "duping all the similar keyboard locking problems to a central bug, so that we can think a way to log the events if necessary". Which seems to be a generic response to a lot of these posts. Some people reported that it was simply becuase another window/pane/tab was in focus but I can see the OP obviously did not have this specific problem. Looks to me like one of those random unresolvable bugs. Hope I never get it! There's also numerous forum posts around the Internet, where users stated that removing certain 3rd party plugins has solved this issue.
I just spotted this particular post which has a possibly useful comment on it for you (which also link to this SO post. As I do not have the bug I cannot test its validity for you. The main point of it seems to be something about the keyboard layout switching.
I'm sorry for putting all this into an answer when technically it is not an answer and just a mass of research, but there was no way this was gonna fit into a comment. And also sorry for pretty much link spamming, but again there was no way I could extract everything that they said into this post. I hope there is something useful in there for you :)
EDIT: You should probably check the top rated answer below as this seems to solve a number of peoples issues, although I never had the Resharper plugin and still occasionally experienced this, but now I'm on VS2013 and have not had this problem re-occur, so maybe they fixed it...
Empty the solution cache folder
C:\Users\{UserName}\AppData\Local\JetBrains\ReSharper\v8.2\SolutionCaches\
This was suggested by JetBrains support when I contacted them.
Permanently fixing... Not too sure however I found that pressing pressing Ctrl+Shift+Caps Lock+Tab all at once seems to get rid of this and enables the mouse and keyboard again. I know this isn't the best of solutions but it works.
I have the same problem several times a day. I didn't notice it until I installed the web essentials extension. I just uninstalled it and will see what happens. I have tried reinstalling visual studio with no joy (but again, I didn't notice the problem until after I had already installed the various extensions).
Sometimes, closing and re-opening the specific code window I'm working in fixes it. If that fails, sometimes I close all windows and reopen just the one I was actively editing. If all of that fails it usually requires a complete restart of visual studio.
I find it funny that MSFT says that they can't duplicate the problem. Scott Guthrie experienced it first hand during his MVC4 beta demo here at about 28 minutes in.
UPDATE: So far, as of 4-5-2012 9:33am Central Time, the problem hasn't recurred since uninstalling Web Essentials. This is the longest I've gone without this bug occurring. If I make it through the next 24 hours, I'll be confident in blaming Web Essentials.
UPDATE: 4-6-2012 10:05am Central Time: Well, apparently it wasn't Web Essentials. It happened to me again this morning editing the contents of a block in my _Layout.vbhtml file. Closing the tab and reopening it fixed it.
I frequently encounter this editor freeze, not just on CSS quotes but any file arbitrarily. I have a dual monitor setp and I have the doucment windows one one monitor and all tool windows on the next one. Sometimes, certain tool windows would freeze too (i.e. not respond to click).
Previously, I used to shutdown/restart IDE; but serendipitously, I discovered that switching to/from Full Screen mode, restores sanity. So now everytme I see a freeze, mode switching comes to rescue.
Not sure if this will solve your issue, but worth a shot.
Rant: In general, I find this new WPF based product very falky and unstable than its predeccessors.
I have the same problem on IDE, some times the Return key is not working at all...
My solution is: CLEAN the project/solution.
BTW: CLEANing resolve also other unexpected behaviours after amendements on CSS or HTML.
I tried every other workaround here but nothing seemed to work, and the issue was only present in one solution but not another.
Disabling Resharper fixed it temporarily but it came back after re-enabling it which wasn't a viable long-term solution.
What worked for me was disabling all Resharper Extensions (Under Resharper -> Extension Manager). I was able to type again even after re-enabling all of them, so I'm unsure which extension specifically caused the issue, but that's another route to try for people who still have this issue.
I never had the problem until I installed plugins/extensions. Curious to know if anyone has had this problem without having any plugins/extensions installed. I don't know if they are the actual cause but since benefits of the plugins outweigh the occasional lockup, I have left them installed. BTW, I use the "closing/reopening of the window with the lockup" technique.
Using a source control (GIT, AKSVN)? If so, disable it, restart VS then enable it and open the solution again.
I just started making games and I decided for my next project to use either flashdevelop or flex builder. Reason being is because you can embed just about everything and for licensing purposes and it recommended the the game is compiled into one file. flex sdk is good with that type of stuff.
As of right now I decided to use flashdevelop. but recently it's been kicking my behind. First I wasnt able to use ui class (e.i. buttons, and textboxes) probably because of something stupid I did. Now for some reason I can not compile my applications. When I compile, nothing happens, no errors, no nothing. below is a screenshot of what happens when I compile.
Yes i installed debugger and yes I installed sdk
So now I was thinking about just going with flex builder. Not sure which one is more easier to assemble and use. But I do know the flex builder community is bigger, and they have a much better documentation. I am good with actionscript, but I am not so good with using flex.
My ultimate question is...
Which one is easier to assemble
which one is easier to use
which one is BETTER overall
as far as not compiling goes, looks like it compiled just fine.
I don't know what you're expecting to see from the code other than the "Hello"
to see that open up your output window (under View)
Whether you use flex or flashdevelop, you end up using the same compiler.
Like Adam, I find flashdevelop easier to use than flex, but that's because I've used it more (flex trial expired and FD didn't)
And plus I'm fast with FD, like really fast :)
Try some of the shortcuts:
to create getter and setter or
generate function press 'ctrl shift ~' and PRESTO
or for a for loop or for each loop type in the first few
letters and press 'ctrl B'
to find instances of any string in code you
can do F3 and shift F3, whereas F4
will find the object or function
declaration(even in separate files)
FD also adds a lot of the classes as
needed (sometimes I have to do it manually)
and the latest version lets
you generate classes which extend
another class easier.
I'm sure that flax does most of this as-well, but when you're already used to this then switching slows you down.
I had the same issues when I started working with FD. What it boils down to is that flex has a bunch of libraries that it's using that FD doesn't unless you link to them, and sometimes even then.
But once you start compiling your libraries and assets into SWCs you will be able to compile them through Flash and Flex. Which can be handy (like when you're working with other developers)
FD doesn't have a profiler, but this has not prompted me to stop using it. When I need some debugging and trace isn't enough I add the demonsters debugger class: http://www.monsterdebugger.com/ it's pretty powerful, but you still can't step through your code.
** Update - Flash Develop has had a profiler for a few versions now, It's good for watching memory use, but I still end up using monster debugger a lot. You can use debug in Flash Develop as-well and step through your code.**
FD doesn't have the UI that flex does, and for developing mxml it is a bit more tedious, but at pure as3, I find FD is all I need. Well than and Flash to create my SWCs
I think a lot of it is personal preference, and what you have previously used. Some people do have strong opinions though.
Personally I like FlashDevelop, but only because I am use to it, and can get things done a lot faster e.g. setting up projects, workflow, shortcuts etc. But I am sure If I forced myself to only use FlashBuilder (formally FlexBuilder) that I would soon come to grips with its nuances.
Here are a few of my points for either side:
FlashDevelop:
I like how FlashDevelop is so simple,
where as Flash Builder is rather
bulky.
FlashDevelop is totally free, where Flash Builder actually cost quite a bit.
Flash Builder:
Built on Eclipse, so has a massive community, tons of plug-ins etc.
Source control intergrated into the IDE (very important in large projects).
Also might want to check out this article on ActionScript Editors.
I know it's an old topic, but in case someone finds it, here is an interesting thing I've noticed:
I am using pixel fonts in my project, and by default Flash Player blurs part of it (it is a known problem). One solution is to use a bitmap text (some kind of custom class) and the other is to use Text Renderer with some of its related elements to force Flash to render the font correctly. When compiling under the same version of Flex SDK in Flash Builder 4+ the font rendered correctly. But when I compiled with Flash Develop (latest version) the text was really ugly, with missing pixels at random places. It might be caused by the fact that Flash Develop or Flash Builder are sending some hidden arguments to the compiler which either make it work/break.
This is a long running question that has been repeated a few times. Review this question and see if it answers yours.
Web-based Game Development: Flex Builder or Flash CS3?
I recently started to develop using Flex 3 and Adobe Air and I wanted to know what features you want to be in futures releases of Adobe Air ?
The ones that I miss are:
Cross-systems way of launching a local file (shellExec) right from an Air application (although you can do this using workaround at least under Windows)
Ability to setup dynamic paths for Embed statement (e.g. Embed[(variable+"/path/to/file")] ). I didn't find any way to do this properly.
Some way of setting Flex object's positions with absolute values from CSS (that sounds more Flex related by the way)
Don't hesitate to add your workarounds to theses limitations if you know somes.
Ability to call out to native code - you currently have to ship a server written in another language and make calls to that to do anything more than Air gives you.
Modal windows. There's a hack you can do which involves setting Application.application.enabled = false, setting dialog.nativeWindow.alwaysInFront = true and then re-enabling the application when the dialog closes, but this is long-winded and doesn't disable any native menus you may have! It's crazy that something so simple is made so difficult.
A usable way to set the application's icon. I spent 2 hours trying to do this the other day and gave up after persistent "303" errors that gave me no idea of what I was doing wrong. Again, really basic stuff.
"Call native code", "Modal windows", agree-agree.
loadLibrary would be really great :)
ps.:
if we can not have this features in AIR, if would be awesome to have an opportunity to embed flash(AIR) graphics engine into your own app. in that case we'll get great performance improvement and liberty of choice what to write (not only small gadgets).
I currently do a lot of work in ActionScript 3.0, I also love to program in Java. Is JavaFX perfect for me? What is the general feeling on JavaFX, will it become a power house, or go down the same path as Java Applets? Could the designers I work with become comfortable with JavaFX to the same extent they are comfortable with ActionScript and JavaScript?
Just wanted to add my $.02... I've been working in JavaFX for the last 4 days on my first little side-project using it. As some background, I've been programming professionally for about 9 years, starting with C, and have been doing Java and C#/.NET for the last 6 yrs.
IMO, JavaFX its way more frustrating that it should be. Here are some gripes:
The syntax is just odd at times. It could easily be more like Java, since its JavaFX. But the syntax isn't an easy transition from Java.
The order of items in a .fx file actually matters, which means you run into stupid circular reference errors, and "oh you can't use this variable yet because it hasn't been initialized" problems that the compiler should handle with ease, but doesn't.
Random things just don't work. Actions/events on Swing controls don't always work, for example SwingSliderBar's onKeyPressed/released don't seem to be called.
Error handling is just bad. If an exception occurs that isn't handled, there is no real way to tell other than the Java console, and UI elements start to react funny. For example, make a SwingText box and bind its value to a variable. Now trying to edit the value in the text box will throw an exception because you cant edit the bound variable. However in the UI, the text box just starts having funny things happen. some characters only 1/2 paint, sometimes backspace does nothing, sometimes it deletes a character, sometimes you can press 2 keys ont eh keyboard like "1" and "2" and the text box will end up having "21" entered in it instead of "12", etc...
Although my absolute #1 problem with JavaFX development right now is Netbeans. It is pathetically bad at JFX. Can't debug, errors display wrong in the IDE (I've had it flag comments as errors!), the intellisence only works like 40% of the time, event he code templates preprogrammed in the IDE for drag & dropping controls aren't correct. I forget which one, but one of them drops a "&" at the end of the inserted code that is never valid and always has to be manually deleted... its just plain awful, and is unacceptable for a company like Sun.
Another gripe is general documentation. Its just lacking. Somehow the JavaFX API doesn't even come up as the #1 search result on google when searching for methods/classes. Tons of "examples" out on the web don't work any more as every version has major refactoring changes, and classes removed or renamed.
Overall, I give JFX a 4 out of 10. I want to like it, but JFX 1.1 just doesn't cut it... its definitely not what I would consider "production ready".
A resounding "meh".
When I looked at it a year ago, they had a one-way SVG to JavaFx conversion tool. Great, so you can author your visual content once, mark it up with a lot of behaviour, and then the next time you want to make it look good, then what?
If you take a look at this tutorial you can see what I mean. We're drawing stuff by dragging shapes from a palette into source code. OMGWTF. I am not showing that to my graphics department.
I hope I'm wrong about JavaFx, but I don't think they get it. Please, won't somebody at Sun give us a presentation layer that doesn't have its tentacles inextricably intertwined with code?
I left my last job to move from Java to .NET development.
There were a number of reasons for making the move, but the single biggest reason was that I was sick and tired of trying to build 1st class UI software with Java & Swing. It has been six years and I'm so glad I moved on. I see no reason to believe that Sun finally understands UI development with JavaFX.
I am convinced that Microsoft is finally in the process of giving us a platform to build rich interactive applications in the browser. I say that after having built commercially available software which was delivered as a Netscape Plugin 13 years ago, followed by ActiveX controls and Java Applets, and seeing all of these platforms fail to become ubiquitous in the enterprise for one reason or another.
I realize that Silverlight 2 is still lacking in depth and maturity, but Microsoft has shown me enough commitment at this point that I believe it will be the dominant RIA platform in a few short years - at least for projects which require a "real" programming language. I am sure Flash et al. is not going away anytime soon, but Flash is not appropriate for the kinds of software my company builds.
The icing on the cake for me is the fact that I will still be able to use Visual Studio, C# and a large percentage of my current code base (the core engine which is entirely separate from the UI). Of course, if you are coming from ActionScript, this would not help you.
One more important point is the fact that Silverlight and WPF share so much in common. Our plan is to share a large amount of implementation between Silverlight and WPF versions of our software. It is only a matter of time before WPF is the standard for Windows applications – I don’t know whether that is a couple of years or ten years, but it will clearly happen over time. Being able to target the most popular browsers / OS’s with Silverlight and Windows from the same code base is a tremendous advantage IMO.
If you know Java then moving to C# is a piece of cake. And unless you are using one of the nice (not free) Java IDEs, then even the free versions of Visual Studio will be an improvement over what you are used to. The hurdle will be learning the new way of doing things with XAML – but it’s some pretty cool stuff so you might actually enjoy it.
Although it appears fairly powerful in terms of capabilities, I'm kinda blah about JavaFX because of its structure and implementation. It seems like a really half-hearted attempt at getting into the Flash/Silverlight market. Too scripty.
I would argue in favor of going the Silverlight 2 route, but I'm primarily a C# developer so I'm a little biased there. If you don't like that route for whatever reason but still want a richer UX for your users, I'd suggest Flex; it seems much better organized than JavaFX to me.
Just my two cents on the subject.
If you know Java but want to do the stuff you thought was only feasible in Flash - then yes JavaFX would be good for you.
Without a doubt it's going to be much more easier to merge your Java knowledge with the design stuff.
And I believe the tooling will only get better which will make it simpler to use.
Unless you’re working on an internal app I would stay away from it. Users generally don’t want to have to deal with another program that accomplishes the same thing as Flash. I don’t think its install base is large enough yet to make it convenient for end users.
I've been developing Flash Applications with Flex for about 2 years now and I decided to give a try to JavaFX because we are constantly getting user complains that they cant use the applications from their IPhones (and I love Java).
That's one strike for Flash (no wide mobile support).
To be honest I was quite impressed with JavaFX (in a very bad way).
The documentation is incomplete.
The script is simply awful; its this weird hybrid between JSON and R with a feeling of a Java-deja-vu.
I spent the first 3 days painting polygons and making gradients with CODE... WTF!!
I tried to convince my graphic department to try it and they simply don't seam to grasp how the production suite is supposed to work, they keep complaining that Flex skinning is way easy and looks better in the end (Which is absolutely true).
The "CSS support" is simply a bad joke.
It generally feels like a mediocre attempt to offer an option for RIA frontend.
I can only think of a couple of good things about it:
It can be run from an IPhone / IPad and almost all mobile devices.
You have access to all the Java code you want which is great considering the limitations that ActionScript has (no overloading, no private constructors, etc). This is a great thing for us the programmers, but lets remember for a second that this is a frontend/presentation technology... that means that users will have to actually see the thing, so if it doesn't look good and have cool animations / effects they wont dig it.
The Script is way less verbose that MXML files are (with the cost of being unintelligible).
Talking about performance... Flash Player is this huge green blob that keeps growing and growing until no RAM is left compared to how JavaFX runs (JVM rocks! unfortunately this has nothing to do with the actual JavaFX API its just that the JVM... well it rocks!).
It has this cool feature where you can drag the applet outside the Web Browser.
In the end, Im happy I have an option to go mobile but this is light years way of the matureness that Flex/Flash has accomplished regarding RIA applications. The future of Flex/Flash as a wide distributed web technology is not clear (it may end up being used only for annoying banners and online games), no one wants to depend in a close technology as the Flash Player is, that's why the whole Web community is striving to get Flash out of the picture (HTML5 video support, No Flash Player for Apple devices, etc). So an attempt to have an open one is always welcomed, it's just that JavaFX feels like this incomplete rushed beta version of something that Sun felt obligated to come up with in a weekend during a bad hangover.
I Hope this is useful to someone (and offensive to someone at Sun/Oracle =p ).
I've spent the weekend 'playing with it. I see nothing useful in it. It's a iteration of swing / awt. I guess it will be nice for mobile devices but beyond that its nothing useful.
Ideally I'd like to use flash but find it painful to intergrate with a backend of any type.
Well, the syntax of both ActionScript and JavaFX seem to share a lot of similarities, so maybe "Yes".
I'm learning JavaFX script at the moment and I actually like it. But what I don't like, and is maybe it's biggest drawback, is it's awful documentation, which is often not up to date or incomplete.
I've been working on a JavaFX application for several months now. Personally, I love the language. They seemed to me to have made some very smart decisions in choosing the syntax and language constructs (I can bore you with a list if you'd like). I've been programming in it for a few months now and it seems like a very efficient and even enjoyable language to program in.
I think its best use right now is for desktop applications and/or applications deployed through webstart. On the desktop it has a rich set of features and can still make use of the other features of Swing and the rest of Java. From what I hear applets are still slow on some systems, and without Android support the mobile capabilities are non-features. The applet/mobile/TV/web support seems to me more like a bonus for desktop developers then as key features that would get you to use the technology.
So it really all depends on what you plan to use it for. If you are building desktop applications that you want to run on the Java VM that can make use of easy multimedia and rich ui controls, then I think there are good reasons to look at the language. WebStart has improved quite a bit and makes for a nice deployment tool. If you are looking to build web applications, then it might be interesting, but for now I'd say HTML5/ajax are more relevant (you might want to look at ZK in this case). However even with HTML5 ajax has its limitations, and if you find yourself running into them then JavaFX may offer you options. For mobile platforms it won't be relevant until there is stable Android support - in that case I'd just stick with the Android platform itself for now.