Drombler FX: building modular JavaFX applications with OSGi and Maven

If you have ever learned to use a modular Rich Client Platform such as the NetBeans Platform (Swing based) or Eclipse RCP (SWT based) it's likely you wouldn't want to write rich clients in any other than in a modular way.

And so I'm happy to announce the availabilty of a first Early Access version of Drombler FX. Drombler FX is a modular Rich Client Platform for JavaFX based on:

• OSGi: OSGi is the de facto standard for writing modular software in Java.
• Maven (POM-first): Drombler FX applications can be build with Maven. The build follows the standard POM-first approach (the OSGi meta data will be generated for you). A custom Maven Plugin will help you to easily create JavaFX applications with Maven. A custom Maven Archetype will help you to get started.
• Declarative programming model: Annotations can be used at many places to register elements such as menus, toolbars and GUI components.

The first use case supported by Drombler FX is building standard desktop applications: applications with a menu bar, possibly several toolbars and a content pane with tab panes in nested split panes.

There's a Getting Started page which explains how to create, build and run a Drombler FX sample application with a few simple steps.

In addition, this Early Access release of Drombler FX provides initial versions of the following frameworks:

• Actions, Menus and Toolbars Framework
• Docking Framework
• Context Framework

You can use the Drombler Forum for questions and discussions.

If you find issues or have enhancement requests, you can file a ticket here: http://issues.drombler.org.

Note: As this is an Early Access release, all APIs might be subject to change.