FX

CJT

+44 (0) 0118 934 7909
info@cjtech.co.uk
www.cjtech.co.uk

"JavaFX makes perfect sense for anyone developing rich applications targeting multiple environments and devices. At CJT we provide all encompassing solutions and with JavaFX's elegant, powerful and feature rich technology all being backed up by the full Java Runtime Environment, makes its usage for both enterprise multi-device multi-platform solutions to a single rich web application extremely compelling."

CJT - Partner Profile

CJT specializes in creating solutions that span both platforms and devices. A cutting edge software development agency, CJT stays on top of new technologies in order to deliver state-of-the-art, all-encompassing applications their clients expect.

Given this penchant for keeping current, it is no surprise that CJT investigated JavaFX when it was first introduced. CJT already used Java technology on the server side, and the key features of JavaFX—rich and expressive and designed for the Web, desktop, mobile, and TV—complements the company's core focus nicely. Jethro Grassie, technical director for CJT, candidly describes his reaction to JavaFX, "I thought it was great! Quite simply, JavaFX holds a great appeal for developers because it allows them to write applications that target today's three key platforms: the Web, the desktop, and mobile devices."

The JavaFX Production Suite is another reason why CJT is so excited about the JavaFX platform.

"It is tackling the workflow for designers and developers in a completely different way to what Adobe is with Flash Catalyst," reads a company blog posting about the tool. The result is a streamlined designer/developer workflow that is demonstrated in a screencast here:

http://blog.cjtech.co.uk/index.php/2009/09/29/javafx-workflow-screencast/

The JavaFX Production Suite has been designed to facilitate the iterative and collaborative workflow that characterizes RIA design and development. It allows designers to create graphic assets in their preferred environment and lets developers integrate and manipulate these assets from their favorite Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The JavaFX Production Suite also enables both developers and designers to work in parallel while easing the integration process for final deployment.

Clearly the streamlined workflow agrees with the development team at CJT. The blog entry continues, "This workflow also suits our particular company way better than Adobe's workflow offering and I suspect we are not alone. We have great designers who spend every second of their day in Photoshop or Illustrator, and great programmers who spend their day in a text editor!"

"I really can't stress how happy we all are here and how much we are looking forward to using this new technology in production. We are writing applications for Web, desktop, and mobile and JavaFX can really help bridge the gap."

CJT freely shares its experience and use of best practices. The firm has ported the popular Cairngorm micro architecture to JavaFX and released it to the public as Cairngorm-FX. The Cairngorm framework is made up of several design patterns for rich Internet applications (RIAs) that help structure applications in a consistent manner and is used by many Flex developers. CJT's Cairngorm-FX applies these best practices to JavaFX development and is available as a Google Code project at http://code.google.com/p/cairngorm-fx/.

The development team at CJT has also created a skinning tool for JavaFX that is used in-house to save time on a tedious task. The firm has packaged this utility as a Java Web Start application that is available on the CJT Web site at http://blog.cjtech.co.uk/index.php/2009/06/07/flex-skinning-tool/