Designed to “deliver content across all the screens of your life,” Sun's rival to Adobe's Flash/Flex - JavaFX - is making available today a preview release of the JavaFX SDK, focusing on the RIA workflow. Sun's aim is to help the world's six million Java developers to create RIAs.

The four screens (PC, mobile, TV and other consumer devices) are where Sun sees RIAs going and it is positioning JavaFX is the rich client platform for creating RIAs with immersive media and content across all four.

The JavaFX Preview SDK provides web scripters and Java developers with the foundation to quickly and easily build high-impact, immersive RIAs that combine 2D and 3D graphics, high fidelity audio and video and animation, all while leveraging the power and functionality of the existing Java Platform.

JavaFX Preview SDK is now available for download for free from http://java.sun.com/javafx/downloads/.

The download includes:

• The JavaFX compiler and runtime tools, 2D graphics and media libraries necessary to create highly interactive applications for the desktop and browser.
• Helpful Tutorials, extensive API documentation and code samples
• NetBeans 6.1 IDE with integrated JavaFX plugin that provides a sophisticated development environment to build, preview and debug JavaFX applications.
• Project Nile, an easy-to-use plugin that allows exporting graphical assets from Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to JavaFX applications
• Java Runtime Environment (Java SE 6 Update 10 Beta), featuring a redesigned Java-based browser plugin that allows live, running applets to be dragged out of a web browser and dynamically transformed into a JavaFX application running on the desktop.

This Preview SDK is recommended by Sn for use by early adopters who want to become familiar with the JavaFX application model; it is not yet recommended, the company notes, for commercial application development.

The idea is that the contents of the JavaFX framework will continue to evolve based on internal development schedules and developer feedback. Sun intends to deliver the first version of JavaFX for Desktop in the Fall of 2008 and plans to deliver the first version of JavaFX for Mobile in the Spring of 2009.