November 02, 2008

Teaching myself JavaFX by building a Twitter client

I am playing with the JavaFX Preview SDK to see what it does and feels like. I am using Netbeans 6.1. So far, I think I like it, although it takes some time to get used to the JavaFX syntax. It looks like java and underneath it is java, but you need a different mindset to use it.
The preview SDK is missing several things as it seems. Maybe I am using the wrong distribution.

To teach myself JavaFX I needed a goal. Something simple and fun to build. I decided on a Twitter client. Using much of James Weaver's (check out his blog, it is worth your while if you want to learn JavaFX) example code, I have cobbled together a very crude Twitter thingy that can only read my own friend timeline (or the public timeline), but I have gotten this far without too much effort.

Here's a screenshot:



Of course, I will never finish it, because I perpetually lack time. Cheering me on might help.

6 comments:

Jim Weaver said...

As instructed, I'm cheering you on! Seriously, please finish your Twitter client (using JavaFX SDK 1.0 of course). Several people have expressed interest in one, so I'd like to feature one on my blog.

Thanks,
Jim Weaver
http://JavaFXpert.com

Unknown said...

Thanks for the cheer. I am doing this in my spare time, so progress will go in small bursts. I am currently indeed converting my code to JavaFX 1.0. I will let you know when I am done.

I hope to make an open source project out of this. I have already started a project on google code.

Anonymous said...

Are you using any twitter APIs ? If so could you please tell.

Unknown said...

Yes, I am using Twitter4J: http://yusuke.homeip.net/twitter4j/en/index.html

PTJE_NL said...

Hi Mark,

you mentioned you created an opensource project. Is there link to it which you want to share.
I was having the same idea with twitter and JavaFX, but you beat me to it.
I'm currently doing a course in SA, but might put some effort when I'm done. End off juli.
regards,
Pim

Unknown said...

Yep, I open sourced it some time ago. Look here: http://tweetbox.org