During Devoxx 2008 we were preparing demos for the JavaFX Keynote including a demo for JavaFX Production Suite called Swish. Swish is a demo where we take a photoshop file of graphics and an Illustrator file with animation paths and put together a small animation using those resources in JavaFX. Then we can take a new set of graphics and paths and swap them out with the same code and get a completely new look for the animation. You can watch the standard version of the Swish demo on the  JavaFX Videos page on the video called “Designer-Developer Workflow”.

The original graphics

The alternative graphics

At Devoxx Danny Coward asked if we could tweak the graphics and add a Devoxx logo or similar. I asked Stephan Janssen if he could send me some of the Devoxx graphics and he sent me the graphics that were being projected behind the speaker and slides on the big screens. As I am a perfectionist and can never do the simple thing I spent some of the day before the keynote creating a complete Devoxx theme for the Swish demo.

Devoxx themed graphics

When I showed the graphics to Stephan Janssen he said half joking (I think!) wouldn’t it be cool if we could replace the graphics behind the slides and speaker with this animation. After some discussions we worked out that if I could create a full HD video loop 1920×1080 then they had the technology to project that on the big cinema screens. So not to be one to let a challenge go by I created a full HD version of the graphics and we ran the JavaFX application on Martin’s MacBook Pro as it was the only machine we had access to with full HD resolution screen. We then screen recorded it and spent the rest of the night creating and encoding a video loop. So while everyone was walking into the room and during the performances by the Beatboxer Roxorloops our video was playing on the big screen.

Devoxx animation of big screen

It was a whole pile of fun so maybe next year Stephan can arrange a machine which we can install JavaFX and have animated backgrounds for all the talks. I think we were all impressed that JavaFX could pull off full HD animation, makes me want to write a video titling tool in JavaFX

Over the last couple months Richard Bair, Martin Brehovsky and I presented talks introducing JavaFX at Devoxx 2008, Sun Paris Tech Day and IJTC 2009 (Irish Java Technologies Conference). There are 2 versions a longer one for Devoxx and a more condensed version for Paris and IJTC. For those of you interested here are the slides and demos:

Slides

Devoxx Slides PDF

IJTC Slides PDF

Demo

During the talks we built up a simple demo with what you learn in each section.

Here are the links so you can webstart the demos for the different sections, I started at Demo 2d as that is the first version with working close button which is always helpful

Here is the Netbeans project and source files for these demos so you can play with them.

Netbeans-Project.zip

I am just reviewing the submissions for JavaOne 2009 and was looking back at what we did for JavaOne 2008 and noticed Sun has posted the slides with audio from our session on Nimbus last year. So if you are interested in Nimbus and were not fortunate enough to be able to come and see us in person or have listened to it already. Then it is well worth checking out as I think we made a good attempt to explain how Nimbus works and how to use it. 

Nimbus: The New Face of Swing TS-6096

Presenter: Richard Bair, Sun Microsystems, Inc.; Jasper Potts, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Nimbus is the stunning next-generation cross-platform look-and-feel for the Java platform, perfect for skinning Swing components in existing applications and new FX applications. In this session, two Nimbus developers guide you through using Nimbus to create beautiful modern applications. They cover the basics of using Nimbus in your Swing applications and also discuss using the new Nimbus Designer visual design tool for extending Nimbus and styling custom components. Finally, they show how to brand your applications with completely custom look-and-feels extending Nimbus.

While I am on the topic of UI Design I Palm released their new handset this week called the “Palm Pre” it looks very nicely designed and should be good competition to the iPhone and Android if it works as well is it looks good. Looking though the designs for all the screens published on their website most of it looks nicely designed with a consistent feel, though they are let down in a few places like the calendar month view which is very sketchy compared to other screens. Overall I think they have done a excellent job well worth looking though the images in the more link.

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Today I came across this interesting article “iWork / iLife ’09 UI Roundup” on how Apple has changed the UI look of the applications in the iWork and iLife bundles with the new 09 versions. Anyone who works in the user interface design world knows Apple is often setting the trends that the rest of the industry follows such as glassy/glossy interfaces. So its always interesting keeping a eye on what they are doing.