JavaFX Maven Plugin

What does it do?

The JavaFX maven plugin provides maven goals to manage JavaFX and/or WebStart based projects.

The goals allows you to "compile" JavaFX code, generate "jnlp" files, deploy it all on a Maven Repository Manager, and then "execute" the JNLP file with Java WebStart.

1. The plugin will compile javafx source files without interfering with the java compiler. It activates the javafxc Ant task using the Maven model to fill the classpath and other parameters.
2. All generated class files will be generated under the standard maven dir "target/classes" and so packaged and distributed by Maven automatically.
3. The plugin will activate Velocity to generate a JNLP file out of the master template and all Maven model data (your project information) and especially maven runtime dependencies. The generated JNLP file will be distributed by Maven automatically.

Resources

• Example project FishSim using the plugin: fishsim subversion trunk
• How to build the FishSim Demo page with Artifactory WebStart add-on screencast
• Binaries distribution on JFrog public Artifactory repository jfrog-javafx-plugin
• The source code on JFrog subversion repository: jfrog-javafx-plugin
• The JIRA project for bug reports and next features: JFXCP
• The maven generated site: jfrog-javafx-plugin

Change List

1. Version 1.1 : Compiled using JavaFX 1.2.1, and with 1.2.1 dependencies
2. Version 1.0 : Final version with JavaFX 1.2

Activating the plugin

• Add the maven repositories for the plugin and JavaFX resources
  If you are using Artifactory Online or Artifactory Standalone, just add the default jfrog-third-party-releases and jfrog-plugins-releases public remote repositories, and make sure they are part of the virtual repositories you are using for your Maven build.
  In The FishSim example pom.xml there is a "jfrog" profile that defines the 2 repositories needed for building JavaFX applications with this plugin. The XML code to add to your settings.xml or pom.xml is:

  <repositories>
      <repository>
          <id>jfrog-third-party-releases</id>
          <name>The jfrog repository for 3rd party releases</name>
          <url>http://repo.jfrog.org/artifactory/third-party-releases-local</url>
          <snapshots>
              <enabled>false</enabled>
          </snapshots>
      </repository>
  </repositories>
  <pluginRepositories>
      <pluginRepository>
          <id>jfrog-plugins-releases</id>
          <name>The jfrog repository for plugins releases</name>
          <url>http://repo.jfrog.org/artifactory/plugins-releases-local</url>
          <snapshots>
              <enabled>false</enabled>
          </snapshots>
      </pluginRepository>
  </pluginRepositories>
  

• Then add the following plugin to your pom.xml file:

  <plugin>
      <groupId>org.jfrog.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>jfrog-javafx-plugin</artifactId>
      <executions>
          <execution>
              <goals>
                  <goal>resources</goal>
                  <goal>compile</goal>
                  <goal>jnlp</goal>
              </goals>
          </execution>
      </executions>
  </plugin>
  

And you are ready!

JavaFX dependencies has Maven2 POM declaration

To use javafx SDK jars in your project you need to declare the following dependencies in your POM file:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javafx</groupId>
        <artifactId>javafxrt</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javafx</groupId>
        <artifactId>javafxgui</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.1</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Standard Configuration

There are multiple configuration parameters, but here is an overview:

<plugin>
    ...
    <configuration>
        <mavenStyleResourceLinks>true</mavenStyleResourceLinks>
        <attach>true</attach>
        <generateJavaFxJnlp>true</generateJavaFxJnlp>
        <jnlpRootPath>${artifactory.url}/webstart-dev</jnlpRootPath>
        <source>1.5</source>
        <target>1.5</target>
        <mainClass>fishsim.Main</mainClass>
        <j2seVersion>1.5+</j2seVersion>
        <generateJavaFxJnlp>true</generateJavaFxJnlp>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Goals and Parameters Details

"compile" goal "jfrog-javafx:compile"

The plugin execute the JavaFX compiler Ant task on the standard "src/main/javafx" source folder using the Maven compile scope classpath, and all the classes generated goes into the standard "target/classes".

"resources" goal "jfrog-javafx:resources"

The purpose of this goal is to copy the non javafx files from the standard source path "src/main/javafx" to the classes folder. This is equivalent to the following code:

<resource>
    <directory>${project.basedir}/src/main/javafx</directory>
    <excludes>
        <exclude>**/*.fx</exclude>
    </excludes>
</resource>

So, If you wish to manage your resources folders with separating fx files and non fx files under resources you can remove this goal.

"jnlp" goal "jfrog-javafx:jnlp"

Generate the JNLP files under "target/jnlp" folder based on the default templates (if not overriden by configuration), the standard POM model values and configuration parameters.
If "attach" is set to true, then Maven will install and deploy the generated JNLP files.

<additionalParameters>
    <iconHref>acme.jpg</iconHref>
    <author>john doe</author>
</additionalParameters>

"execute" goal "jfrog-javafx:execute"

Execute the generated and deployed JNLP file using Java WebStart.