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Long-Term Public Updates of OpenJDK
Oracle has announced that they do not intend to offer public updates for OpenJDK beyond the six-month lifecycle of each release. Others in the open-source community are planning to provide long-term public updates to OpenJDK that mirror Oracle's long-term support releases. One such
release roadmap has been announced by the
AdoptOpenJDK foundation. The foundation includes in their Tier-1 Sponsor list companies such as major Java industry players IBM, Azul Systems, and Microsoft Azure, to name a few. BASIS will provide BBj support for
both the commercial Oracle JDK as well as OpenJDK.
Oracle's Java 11 is Missing Java Web Start and JavaFX
Java Web Start has been conveniently used for updating and deploying BASIS' thin client to desktops via a simple URL. It has been included in the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) since 2001.
BASIS is testing alternatives including an implementation of Java Web Start,
IcedTea-Web, an open source project supported by Red Hat and other major players.
BASIS already provides a JNLP.exe Packer plug-in to create a Windows-only desktop executable to launch the BBj thin client as an alternative to Java Web Start.
Benefits of the JNLP.exe Packer include:
- obviating the need for certificates
- faster thin client startup times
- elimination of the end user inadvertently designating the wrong version of Java for use by the thin client
- uses the JNLP configuration infrastructure
A drawback is:
- packaging and deployment to the desktop needs to be managed by the System Administrator
An update on Java Web Start alternatives will be provided by BASIS when their evaluation and testing have concluded.
JavaFX has been open sourced as
OpenJFX and redesigned to be available as a stand-alone library rather than being included with the JDK. BASIS has successfully tested BBj with OpenJFX. JavaFX/OpenJFX is leveraged by two key components of BASIS technology: the BBjHtmlEdit and
BBjHtmlView controls.
Applications using the BBjHtmlEdit control require JavaFX or OpenJFX in order to function.
The BBjHtmlView control, however, can use either JavaFX/OpenJFX or the alternative Chromium Engine that BASIS now ships. In our testing, it has proven to have superior performance and better HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript support than Oracle's JavaFX/OpenJFX.
The BBjHtmlView control is a complete web browser with support for HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Its capabilities represent a significant leap forward for the BBj language by allowing developers to write BBj code that can interact with and respond to JavaScript events.
HERE is a brief video of some of its capabilities.
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