Josh On Design

Since I joined the JavaFX team a few months ago I have spent some of my free time creating demos and learning the language. Most of my demos have been simple single class applications that highlight a particular language feature or graphical effect. After a while, though, I decided to write something bigger to prove it could be done and really stress test the language. As a result of feedback from me (and many other dedicated early adopters) we have some great improvements coming down the pipe.

Writing this game really taught me the Zen of JavaFX Script (hmm... sounds like a good book title). I often have to fight my procedural Java instincts and instead use binding and triggers wherever possible. It's really a different way of thinking, closer to Lisp or Prolog (and even a bit of SQL), but quite powerful. I'm sure I didn't get it perfect and I bet I could rewrite it in a few more months using a better style, but this is a good start.

So I'd like to share with you my first real JavaFX Script application. It's a simple puzzle game where you click grid cells to turn off the light. As you click each cell the adjacent cells flip as well. You win the game by turning off all lights (hence the name :).

Losing badly at Lights Out

I had planned to release it earlier but decided to wait until NB 6 was final in case there were any last minute changes.

You can run the program using Java WebStart or download a zip of the NetBeans project. I went through the code this morning to clean up a few things and add documentation. Let me know what other demos you'd like to see.