Using an IDE

Tools are a big part of being a productive developer on OpenJFX and we aim to provide excellent support for all three major IDEs: NetBeans, IntelliJ IDEA, and Eclipse. Regardless of which development environment you prefer, you should find it easy to get up and running with OpenJFX. We hope you will return the favor by submitting patches and bug reports!

This section assumes that you have already succeeded in Building OpenJFX. A gradle build must complete before IDE support will fully work (otherwise your IDE will just be a glorified text editor with lots of red squiggles!). Specific instructions for using each IDE is provided below, followed by a discussion on Developer Workflow, Using Mercurial, and Communication with other members of the team. Further information on how we work can be found under Code Style Rules.

IDE Pre-Requirements

Despite the fact that most of the major IDE's support gradle directly, we have decided to provide pre-generated IDE configuration files in order to make using an IDE smooth and painless. As the IDE's support for gradle improves, we may be able to update these instructions to rely on that support instead of the checked-in project files that we have today.

IMPORTANT: Ensure that you do not have gradle plugins for NetBeans or Eclipse (for Eclipse specific gradle configuration, see below) installed. They will conflict with the pre-generated IDE files. In the future, we may move to gradle builds within the IDE's as support becomes better.

Get a build of the latest JDK

You should use the latest OpenJDK when developing OpenJFX as OpenJFX continuously bumps the minimum JDK version. You can use the latest stable version or early access builds which can be found on http://jdk.java.net/12/ (replace the number for later versions). Starting from JDK11, JavaFX/OpenJFX is not included in the JDK anymore.

If you are building and running native libraries, you need to make sure you use the same version of JDK for NetBeans that you use to build JavaFX with gradle. In particular, if you try to mix a 32-bit JDK and a 64-bit JDK, the binaries will fail to load.

Get an IDE that supports the latest JDK

JDK9 brought modularization to the platform (including OpenJFX) and JDK10 brought Local-Variable Type Inference (AKA "var"). Later versions will bring more language changes. All these require IDE support, which means that you should always use the latest IDE versions, even early access builds. Not all IDEs will be able to advance equally in their support (some still have bugs with lambdas from JDK8), so keep in mind that there will be bugs. You are encouraged to work with your IDE's development team to resolve these.

NetBeans: https://netbeans.org/downloads/

IntelliJ: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/

Eclipse: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/

Once you have downloaded and installed an IDE, you will need to configure it to the latest JDK version. This will be explained later on for each particular IDE. If you use an IDE without current support, OpenJFX will not compile and you will not be able to run from within the IDE.

Pre-JDK11 Only: Delete jfxrt.jar (or move it to a different directory)

JavaFX is bundled with the JDK as an extension. The jfxrt.jar is located in the extension directory called 'ext' where Java is installed. You must remove it from this directory for the IDE's to work properly. The issue is this: If jfxrt.jar is in the extension directory, it will get seen before the code in your IDE. This means you won't be running or testing the code in your IDE. For more information on why this is a problem, see Unique Challenges of Working on the JDK.

By moving jfxrt.jar to a standard cache directory, your IDE can reference it to find binary versions of classes that are not yet open source.  Further, when both jfxrt.jar and your IDE reference a class, the class from the IDE will be chosen.

IMPORTANT:  Do not skip this step.  If you do, you will not be running the code in your IDE and will waste hours wondering why you make changes and they don't run.

Using NetBeans

Many commiters are using NetBeans to develop Java and native code.  NetBeans projects have been configured for both.  Native projects in NetBeans are currently not configured to build using either Make or gradle, however ant build works in NetBeans and will build the classes and jar files needed for the IDE.

• Edit netbeans.conf
• Invoke NetBeans
• Add the JDK8 Platform
• Import NetBeans projects
• Rebuild
• Run sample code
• Run sample code with grade built shared libraries

Invoke NetBeans

Note that before you invoke NetBeans, you may need to clear your old defaults and start with a fresh NetBeans install or you might get errors.

Add the JDK8 Platform

Invoke Tools->Java Platforms

NOTE: You must add a new platform named "JDK 1.8" even if you already have your default platform pointing to a JDK 8 platform.

Import the NetBeans Projects

Open Project... (you may need to resolve missing junit jars, don't open web or builders for now)

Using IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ is a popular IDE that is used by many committers to develop JavaFX code.  An IntelliJ project has been created for you that you need to open.  The steps to use IntelliJ are:

• Open the IntelliJ Project

• Make 

• Run sample code

• Run sample code with grade built shared libraries

Open the IntelliJ Project

IMPORTANT:  Open IntelliJ on the 'rt' directory exactly as indicated in the image above.

Make

Build->Make Project

Run Sample Code

Run Sample Code with Gradle Built Shared Libraries

//TODO - explain how to hook up the shared libraries in the run dialog

Using Eclipse

Eclipse is a popular IDE that is used by many committers to develop Java code. Eclipse projects have been created for you to use. You should use the latest Eclipse version, or at least 4.8 due to modular support.

IMPORTANT: The location of the mercurial repository (<PATH TO JFX>) must not be inside the Eclipse workspace directory.  If it is, nothing will compile and work. (This might not be true anymore)

The steps to use Eclipse are:

• Import the Eclipse Projects
• Configure Eclipse to use the latest JDK
• Run sample code
• Run sample code with grade built shared libraries

Import the Eclipse Projects

1. Go to File -> Import -> General -> Existing Projects into Workspace.
2. Set the root directory to the base repository path (/rt by default).
3. Check Search for nested projects.
4. Optionally, you might find it convenient to work with Working Sets.

Configure Eclipse to use the latest JDK

1. Go to Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Installed JREs and Add and select the above version. If you want to find a regression or backport, you can switch to earlier versions here (will require rebuilding). You might see a warning that Eclipse does not support this Java version, this should not cause issues.
2. Go to Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Compiler and set the compiler compliance level to the latest (you will not have an option for an unreleased version of Java). 

Building the workspace can take some time. However, thanks to Eclipse's incremental compiler, you do not need to rebuild all of it on every change.

NOTE: Dialog.java in the controls module currently gives a compiler error because of a bug in Eclipse. It can be worked around be moving the erroneous line out of the lambda expression. Remember to ignore this change when working against a revision.

JUnit tests

Eclipse can run JUnit tests as an alternative to the gradle tasks.

Right click on the resource you want to test (project/package/class) and select Run as -> JUnit Test.

Running a dependent project

Having an external project that uses the development OpenJFX modules is useful for debugging and testing.

Create a new Java project and add a module-info.java that requires the needed modules. For example:

module zTest {
	requires javafx.base;
	requires javafx.graphics;
	requires javafx.controls;

	exports zTest;
}

In the project properties, Go to Java Build Path -> Modulepath and add the required projects.

Write your classes.

If when running you receive warnning about missing packages or modules, edit the run configuration by going to its Dependencies -> Override Dependencies, then delete the launch dependencies and Override.

Run Sample Code (NOTE: old)

Using Gradle

Eclipse has gradle support via Eclipse Buildship. Use the latest Buildship version as the gradle version used in OpenJFX updates from time to time. OpenJFX uses the gradle wrapper.

The project structure for gradle is such that the root directory (/rt) contains the parent project with all other projects being its children. The Gradle Tasks view will allow you to execute the tasks that you would use Cygwin for otherwise.

NOTE: this process will override the projects' configuration and will cause them to not work anymore. However, since we are inside a mercurial repository, we can revert the breaking changes and keep the gradle settings. This will allow us to work with both Eclipse and gradle.

1. Install Buildship.
2. Go to File -> Import -> Gradle -> Existing Gradle Projects.
3. Set the root directory to the base repository path (/rt by default).

4. Finish and wait for the workspace to rebuild. This will result in many compilation errors.

5. Revert all .classpath files (and clean and rebuild if it does not happen automatically - this will some take time). There should be no compilation errors.

What this process does is add the gralde nature and build command to the .project files. This means that these files are now different than the ones in the repo. Additionally, the .settings folder for each project will contain a Buildship pref file. You will need to resolve the conflicts with the upstream repo, e.g., via hg ignore or hg forget.

Run Sample Code with Gradle Built Shared Libraries (Note: old)

//TODO - explain how to hook up the shared libraries in the run dialog

//TODO - these are the VM Arguments: -Djava.library.path=${workspace_loc:rt}/build/mac-sdk/rt/lib