Configuring JavaFX Development on Linux-Ubuntu (Updated)

Preface

I'm not sure why, but there is very little Chinese material about JavaFX online, and it's all quite old, so I suggest that those interested in learning JavaFX would be better off reading the official documentation. Also, it seems some people don't think highly of JavaFX. There's actually a lot more material about Swing. I find that rather strange—from a design perspective, JavaFX is more sophisticated, isn't it?

PS: After nearly a week of tinkering and exploring, I found that using JavaFX with OpenJDK really has a lot of pitfalls~ The configuration of OpenJDK and Oracle JDK is different; I recommend using Oracle JDK to avoid running into weird pitfalls~

Here's How to Install Oracle JDK

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

OpenJDK Requires One Extra Step

Because OpenJDK 8 does not include the JavaFX package by default, you need to install OpenJFX first.

Configuration

Open IDEA; in a regular Java project, importing the JavaFX package won't find it. When creating a Java project, IDEA does not import the JavaFX package by default, so we need to find the path ourselves and import it.

Open Project Structure, select SDKs, and you can see the JDK path.

Click the “+” sign next to it, then in the JDK directory, find the jfxrt.jar package in the /lib/ext folder and import it, and you're good to go~

HelloWorld

The first program starts with HelloWorld!

package lin.Learning.JavaFx;

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.layout.StackPane;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import javafx.scene.control.Label;


public class HelloWorld extends Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    @Override
    public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
        Label label = new Label("the first label");
        // 创建面板作为根节点
        StackPane rootNode=new StackPane();
        // 将label控件添加到根节点上
        rootNode.getChildren().add(label);
        // 创建场景对象，指定根节点对象和大小
        Scene scene=new Scene(rootNode,200,60);
        primaryStage.setTitle("Hello JavaFx");
        // 将场景添加到舞台中
        primaryStage.setScene(scene);
        // 显示舞台
        primaryStage.show();
    }
}

Running result:

And with that, you've completed your first JavaFX program development on Linux.

Installing Scene Builder

A distinctive feature of JavaFX is the separation of View and Controller, using FXML to write the UI layout, and Oracle provides a WYSIWYG UI design tool, though you have to install it yourself.

Download URL: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/javafxscenebuilder-1x-archive-2199384.html#javafx-scenebuilder-2.0-oth-JPR

Just download the version for your system; here I chose the Debian deb package.

For installing Scene Builder, you can refer to Oracle's documentation: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/scene-builder-2/installation-guide/preface.htm#sthref2

Here's an excerpt from the documentation about installing Scene Builder on Linux:

(Linux platform) Extract the Scene Builder 2.0 files from the javafx_scenebuilder-2_0-linux-<platform>.tar.gz to a directory on your local file system, or double-click the javafx_scenebuilder-2_0-linux-<platform>.deb file to open it with Ubuntu Software Center, where <platform> is either x64 or i586. By default, the Scene Builder application is installed at /opt/JavaFXSceneBuilder2.0/.

As you can see, the Scene Builder installation directory is: /opt/JavaFXSceneBuilder2.0/

Next, we need to configure it in IDEA.

IDEA Configuration

Open Settings

Configure the path

Then add an FXML file to our project. Right-click and you can open it with Scene Builder; the interface is pretty nice.