Google Chrome: The Three Month Report
I almost forgot about my promise to write about my experience with Google Chrome.
That was 98 days ago. It's a long time to be evaluating a product. I'd like to say that I did not forget to write the evaluation, but that's exactly what happened. After the first batch of complaints, I simply kept on using Google Chrome.
Chrome "worked" for most of the web sites that I visit on a daily basis. And it did a good job of fading into the background. Most of the time, I don't think thoughts like "This is Chrome." By the time I realize I still haven't written a review, three months have passed.
So, what kept me from falling back to Firefox 3.0.4? Start up time. Maybe it's because I have too many plugins installed in Firefox, the few times when I tried to use Firefox its start up time is three times that of Chrome. Whereas Chrome starts in one second, Firefox starts in three.
I know what you are thinking: "It's only three seconds." You can't believe how long that three seconds feel, especially when there is a one second alternative that does the same thing. "I can't believe how I tolerated this before," was my thought every time I start Firefox.
Now, my complaints. I have only two. First, if I click on a link and Chrome starts a download, that download "belongs" to that tab. And the download will be canceled if that tab or the whole browser is closed. And this is a real-life issue. I have been bitten by it several times.
Second, there are still some financial institutions that tell me only IE or FF are supported. This is not Google Chrome's fault, but it is a problem for the Chrome user nevertheless. My work around is to fall back to IE.
So, I'm quite a happy Google Chrome user.
JavaFX 1.0 On Linux: NetBeans Plugin
[Update (Wed Jun 3 07:45:43 PDT 2009)]: As of June 2, 2009, you can download the Linux and Solaris version of JavaFX 1.2 SDK directly from http://javafx.com. The Linux and Solaris support is preview only.[/]
This is a follow up on my Using JavaFX 1.0 On Linux seven days ago.
That blog entry was picked up by:
A commenter on my blog (and several commenters on the above cited blogs) asked about if the JavaFX NetBeans plugin can be made to work on Linux. Sure it can. It's Java.
However, since the plugin is not officially released for Linux, things are a little bit confusing: If you browse for Available Plugins and search for javafx, you will see three plugins:
- JavaFX Source Debug
- JavaFX 1.0
- JavaFX Weather Sample
but they cannot be installed. The error message reads:
No plugin providing the capability javafx.sdk could be found.
These three are leftovers from the JavaFX Preview SDK release. We do not want them. We need to browse to the NetBeans update center to find the ones we want:
http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/6.5/uc/final/stable/modules/javafx/
It contains 23 *.nbm (Netbeans module) files. Download them all into a directory.
In NetBeans plugin manager, go to the Downloaded tab and click on the Add Plugins... button, and add all the downloaded files. You will see 21 plugins showing up in the window. Now *uncheck* the three JavaFX Preview SDK plugins listed above and install the rest 18. The installation should go normally, prompting you to restart Netbeans.
The two *.nbm files that the NetBeans plugin manager did not show contains the Windows and Mac versions of the JavaFX SDK 1.0. We ignore the Windows file and concentrate on the Mac version. We do a manual installation:
- Unzip the file (It's a Zip formatted file)
- This generated a few subdirectories, one of them is netbeans
- The netbeans directory further contains subdirectories config, javafx-sdk1.0 and modules
- In your NetBeans 6.5 installation directory, create a subdirectory javafx2 (in parallel to the java2, groovy1 and ruby2 subdirectories) and copy the config, javafs-sdk1.0 and modules directories into javafx2.
- You may need to go into the javafx-sdk1.0/bin subdirectory and make the scripts there executable.
That's it. You now can create JavaFX projects in NetBeans 6.5, edit, compile, debug and preview the project.
Enjoy!
Or wait for the official Linux release, which is only (I heard it somewhere) weeks away.
(Disclaimer: I know very little about NetBeans modules. Although the above procedure appears to work for me, I'm not sure if there is a shorter way to do all this, or if it will have any negative effects on your NetBeans installation. YMMV.)