e(fx)clipse leaps to 0.8.0

In its latest release, e(fx)clipse's version number has been bumped from 0.1.1, as released in September 2012, to 0.8.0 to reflect the IDE for JavaFX's maturity and stability. The system provides an Eclipse-based development environment, tools, and runtime for JavaFX 2.x and later as a framework for building rich client applications.

e(fx)clipse, developed by bestsolution.at, allows applications to be developed with the Eclipse JDT, a DSL called FXGraph for object graph definitions, a CSS editor which knows about -fx- attributes, and an FXML editor. At runtime, it provides a number of extensions for SWT style layout panels, using Google Guide with FXML, and databinding JavaFX properties. It also includes runtime support to simplify building projects with OSGi and allows applications to be developed that combine the E4 SDK and runtime with JavaFX renderers to create a JavaFX RCP platform.

The new version of the e(fx)clipse adds new wizards which help to create well organised OSGi-JavaFX projects and assist the configuration of projects for continuous integration. The new version also adds a first implementation of an FXGraph to FXML cycle which allows FXGraph and FXML files to be translated back and forth. There is also integration between JavaFX and EMF-Edit allowing UIs to be implemented using EMF frameworks such as CDO and Teneo. In API terms, another enhancement is the addition of a minimal logger interface to the core service library with a java.util.logging default logger.

Java 7 is required for the new version of e(fx)clipse and is the main target environment. The developers are now also including support for Java 8 and JFX8 and expect that to be the main target of development work in the future. e(fx)clipse is available to download from the project's site where users will also find tutorials, an introduction to FXGraph, and other resources to work with the tools. The tools can be downloaded as a complete package, including IDE, or installed into an existing Eclipse installation. It is licensed under the Eclipse Public Licence.

(djwm)