atlantafx VS flexmark-java

The full changelog is here: https://github.com/mkpaz/atlantafx/releases/tag/v2.0.0

AtlantaFX & CSSFX for styling in JavaFX

JVM UI isn't so bad. I've written some pretty modern looking UI with it. The sophisticated controls are all there.

Modern JavaFX theme: https://github.com/mkpaz/atlantafx

Modern Swing theme: https://github.com/JFormDesigner/FlatLaf

And these days Compose Multiplatform: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose-multiplatform/

I tend to use Kotlin rather than Java but of course Java is perfectly fine too. You can also use Clojure.

If you use any of those frameworks you can distribute to Win/Mac/Linux in one command with Conveyor. It's free for open source apps and can do self-signing for Windows if you don't want to pay for the certificates or the Store (but the Store is super cheap these days, $19 one off payment for an individual). Also supports Electron and Flutter if you want to use those.

From those frameworks you can then access whatever parts of the Windows API you want. Flutter even has WinRT bindings these days! So it's not quite so bad.

Objectively by what measure?

Bear in mind that there are alternatives: JavaFX and Compose for Desktop are the ones I know best. They can be used from high level and popular languages. JavaFX is particularly good for desktop apps and can be compiled down to purely native code that starts as fast as an app written in C++ (likewise for Compose but the experiments with that are newer).

There are some downsides: fewer people know them than with HTML. There are a few tweaks like window styles on macOS it could use to be more modern. On the other hand, it's easy to learn and you benefit from a proper reactively bindable widget library, like table and tree views if you need those. For developer tools such widgets can be useful.

There's a modern theme for JavaFX here:

https://github.com/mkpaz/atlantafx

CfD uses Material Design of course, but you can customize it.

Having written desktop apps of varying complexity in all these frameworks, I can't say Electron is clearly superior. It is in some cases (e.g. if I was wanting to write a video conferencing app then it makes sense to re-use Google's investment into Hangouts/Meet for that), but it's also worse in some cases. For instance the multi-process model constantly gets in the way, but you can't disable it as otherwise XSS turns into RCE.

The JavaFX styling was completely switched to AtlantaFX in order to achieve the best possible look. This library is honestly the best that you can get if you want your application to have a good and uniform look + dark mode support that doesn't look like we are in the year 2010:

I was really inspired of Dracula color palette, so I decided to spend some time to create a couple of new themes for AtlantaFX. They still need some polishing, but now the project supports 7 themes in total. Here's some preview of Dracula theme and the new classic tab style.

The video shows different screens of a JavaFX app before and after migrating from a custom styling (left) to AtlantaFX themes (right). In the first step we were primarily focused on colors/borders and dark mode, so many of the controls are still based on JFoenix (obsolete) and will be migrated in the next step.

That said if you like Java and feel productive you absolutely can use it to build great desktop apps. Check out https://github.com/mkpaz/atlantafx for great modern look and feel. Lots of other great resources.

Technically, it's not a theme, because it works on top of Modena, you only recolored some controls. Check AtlantaFX, it supports all JavaFX controls. You can even compile your own theme from it.

I developed KeenWrite[0] with similar ideas to mdbook: typeset into PDF from Markdown. Technically, this happens in three stages. First, the Markdown is converted to XHTML. Second, the XHTML is converted to TeX commands. Third, the ConTeXt typesetting system produces a PDF file. Both the GUI and CLI can export to PDF.[1]

Like mdbook, the themes are isolated. Instead of CSS, KeenWrite themes are written in ConTeXt. There are several example starter themes.[2] A "thesis" theme would be a nice addition, but there's a problem.

Markdown lacks a standard for cross-references and citations. An open KeenWrite issue animates a possible UX solution.[3] The topic of references/citations has been discussed on CommonMark[4] without much movement. Parsing cross-references and citations would benefit flexmark-java[5] integrations. KeenWrite uses flexmark-java, but I'm otherwise unaffiliated. If anyone is interested in helping, reach out (see profile).

[0]: https://keenwrite.com/

[1]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/docs/cmd...

[2]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite-themes/

[3]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/issues/145

[4]: https://talk.commonmark.org/t/cross-references-and-citations...

[5]: https://github.com/vsch/flexmark-java

Nowadays, most application documentation is moved onto a website, which forces users to switch to a web browser every time they want to read some basic documentation. Furthermore, docs on the web can become quite convoluted, resulting in additional times spent just looking for the right section. But as it turns out, using the JavaFX WebView, Flexmark, AtlantaFX Popovers, and for example GitHub Markdown CSS, you can achieve a fancy markdown display within your application at exactly the place you want:

KeenWrite is my free and open-source cross-platform desktop text editor that allows users to write pose using variables defined in a separate file. A few highlights:

* Uses flexmark-java[1] to render Markdown as HTML.

* Extends flexmark-java to support Pandoc’s ::: fenced div syntax.

* Supports plain text diagrams via Kroki[2].

* Computes statistics (word count, word frequencies).

* Performs real-time spell checking.

* Integrates the R programming language.

* Includes a subset of TeX for math.

* Exports to XHTML with TeX as either SVG or inline markup.

* Exports to PDF using the ConTeXt[3] typesetting software and a variety of starter themes.

* Converts straight quotes to curly quotes using KeenQuotes, automagically.

See the screenshots[4] for details.

[1]: https://github.com/vsch/flexmark-java/

[2]: https://kroki.io/

[3]: https://www.contextgarden.net/

[4]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/scr...