Welcome to the more multipolar Java world. This story, "JavaFX absorbing all of Sun's UI money? " was originally published by JavaWorld.

Get to know the JavaFX 2 libraries by way of a practical exercise: refactoring a Swing-based text editor into one that leverages the rich UI features of JavaFX (Part 2).

The Java Platform Module System was put in place with the release of Java SE 9, leading the way to decouple JavaFX from the JDK and make it available as a separate module, Oracle says.

It runs alongside Java 11, which is currently available as a release candidate, but will be generally available next week. JavaFX 11 also can run on the OpenJDK version of Java 10.

JavaFX was an important part of Sun's strategy for fighting back and restoring Java's client-side relevance, but it was poorly communicated and weakly executed.

Java remains a powerhouse tool for application development, but developers need to take advantage of new design principles to get the most from their applications.