Can you tell me some new features in JavaFX 2.0?

JavaFX is a software platform for creating and delivering desktop applications, as well as rich internet applications (RIAs) that can run across a wide variety of devices. JavaFX is intended to replace Swing as the standard GUI library for Java SE, but both will be included for the foreseeable future. New and improved interface tools that way WAY beyond your standard buttons, checkboxes, etc. (Think bar and pie charts and cool things you can find using JQuery like date-pickers, accordion panes, tabbed panes etc.) . Check out a nice summary of JavaFx controls here. This includes new media player and web rendering controls. A new ‘language’ called FXML, which like HTML is used only to define the interface of an application, keeping it completely separate from the code logic. An outstanding application called ‘Scene Builder’ which can be integrated into NetBeans and Eclipse to allow you to create and generate FXML documents using a drag-and-drop design interface (think Dreamweaver for HTML) A new powerful way to control the design of your application with CSS-like syntax and precision. If you know any CSS you will easily be able to make the transition to styling JavaFx applications. An integrated library for graphics (both 2D and 3D) as well as animation tools that rival Flash, JQuery and CSS animations Mobile platform development tools (which admittedly, I know very little about at the time of writing this post but like everything else on this site, as I learn I share). There is an open-source project called JavaFx ports that helps bridge the path to mobile application development with JavaFx read less

JavaFX 2.2 and later releases have the following features: Java APIs. JavaFX is a Java library that consists of classes and interfaces that are written in native Java code. The APIs are designed to be a friendly alternative to Java Virtual Machine (Java VM) languages, such as JRuby and Scala. FXML and Scene Builder. FXML is an XML-based declarative markup language for constructing a JavaFX application user interface. A designer can code in FXML or use JavaFX Scene Builder to interactively design the graphical user interface (GUI). Scene Builder generates FXML markup that can be ported to an IDE where a developer can add the business logic. WebView. A web component that uses WebKitHTML technology to make it possible to embed web pages within a JavaFX application. JavaScript running in WebView can call Java APIs, and Java APIs can call JavaScript running in WebView. Swing interoperability. Existing Swing applications can be updated with new JavaFX features, such as rich graphics media playback and embedded Web content. Built-in UI controls and CSS. JavaFX provides all the major UI controls required to develop a full-featured application. Components can be skinned with standard Web technologies such as CSS Canvas API. The Canvas API enables drawing directly within an area of the JavaFX scene that consists of one graphical element (node). Multitouch Support. JavaFX provides support for multitouch operations, based on the capabilities of the underlying platform. Hardware-accelerated graphics pipeline. JavaFX graphics are based on the graphics rendering pipeline (Prism). JavaFX offers smooth graphics that render quickly through Prism when it is used with a supported graphics card or graphics processing unit (GPU). If a system does not feature one of the recommended GPUs supported by JavaFX, then Prism defaults to the Java 2D software stack. High-performance media engine. The media pipeline supports the playback of web multimedia content. It provides a stable, low-latency media framework that is based on the GStreamer multimedia framework. Self-contained application deployment model. Self-contained application packages have all of the application resources and a private copy of the Java and JavaFX runtimes. They are distributed as native installable packages and provide the same installation and launch experience as native applications for that operating system. See the Deploying JavaFX Applications document. read less