As a rich GUI application framework, JavaFX offers everything you will need to build applications that provide an engaging user experience. This chapter is about the GUI components that are available in the JavaFX application framework that you can use as building blocks to create applications quickly.
As of this writing, JavaFX's current version of 1.2 makes available more than a dozen JavaFX components (with the promise of more to come in future releases) located in the package javafx.scene.control
. These are native JavaFX components designed from scratch to provide the level of rich properties and behaviors expected from a rich client platform. They include button, check-box, toggle buttons such as the radio button, hyperlink button, text box, label, and so on. See the recipe Creating a form with JavaFX controls for details.
This chapter also explores ways to integrate JavaFX and the venerable Java Swing GUI framework. Over the years, Swing has evolved into a stable and reliable...