JavaFX Text Rendering Issues

Sun lost the first round of the Rich Internet Application (RIA) battle to Macromedia (now part of Adobe), when Flash outshone Java applets. At the time, applets were ugly and slow to start up.

Now, Sun has a second chance with its promising new hybrid offering, JavaFX. This time, though, the competition is fiercer, and the prize arguably much greater: ownership of the mobile web – rich, collaborative computing on the move. (JavaFX Mobile will of course help rather a lot here). To even participate, let alone win the race, JavaFX applications need to look good with a minimum of effort.

So it worries me immensely when I see this sort of thing:

This monstrosity is the result of a demo that fills red text and surrounds it with a red stroke:

content: Text {
// . . .
  content: "Hello JavaFX Script Developer!"
  stroke: red
  fill: red
}

Obvious answer: “So don’t do that.” However, this "make the text look yucky" approach is like a disease; I’ve encountered it in more than one JavaFX demo with no comment on how nasty it looks.

Other demos, presumably intended to show JavaFX in all its grooviness, also have text rendering issues:

Straight lines bleed into the surroundings; the curves are jagged. There’s obviously precious little antialiasing going on.

I really want JavaFX to do well, but Sun needs to work on these kinds of issues and make it easy to create gorgeous-looking applications. Based on the above evidence, Adobe (and Microsoft with Silverlight) might not be too worried right now.