Integrating JavaFX 2.0 WebView into a Swing Java SE 6 Application

It is very well possible!

One has to install JavaFX 2.0, and somehow manage to have jfxrt.jar in the Classpath.

The following code renders a JFXPanel inside a JFrame. The JFXPanel contains a WebView which loads google.com.

However, at least on my machine, the WebView feels rather sloppy. I’m working on Mac OS X 10.6; JavaFX 2.0 is still in beta for OS X.

Alternatives I found include MozSwing, which looked very promising and feels quite fast actually. Sadly the project is not being developed any further since 2008 and the bundled XUL runner is rather old (no new fancy html 5).

Both approaches are a nightmare to include via maven, you better setup your own local repository.

import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Point;

import javafx.application.Platform;
import javafx.embed.swing.JFXPanel;
import javafx.scene.Group;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.web.WebEngine;
import javafx.scene.web.WebView;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;

public class JavaFX {

    /* Create a JFrame with a JButton and a JFXPanel containing the WebView. */
    private static void initAndShowGUI() {
        // This method is invoked on Swing thread
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("FX");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        frame.getContentPane().setLayout(null); // do the layout manually

        final JButton jButton = new JButton("Button");
        final JFXPanel fxPanel = new JFXPanel();

        frame.add(jButton);
        frame.add(fxPanel);
        frame.setVisible(true);

        jButton.setSize(new Dimension(200, 27));
        fxPanel.setSize(new Dimension(300, 300));
        fxPanel.setLocation(new Point(0, 27));

        frame.getContentPane().setPreferredSize(new Dimension(300, 327));
        frame.pack();
        frame.setResizable(false);

        Platform.runLater(new Runnable() { // this will run initFX as JavaFX-Thread
            @Override
            public void run() {
                initFX(fxPanel);
            }
        });
    }

    /* Creates a WebView and fires up google.com */
    private static void initFX(final JFXPanel fxPanel) {
        Group group = new Group();
        Scene scene = new Scene(group);
        fxPanel.setScene(scene);

        WebView webView = new WebView();

        group.getChildren().add(webView);
        webView.setMinSize(300, 300);
        webView.setMaxSize(300, 300);

            // Obtain the webEngine to navigate
        WebEngine webEngine = webView.getEngine();
        webEngine.load("http://www.google.com/");
    }

    /* Start application */
    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                initAndShowGUI();
            }
        });
    }
}