From the
JavaFX FAQ:
As of JavaFX 2.2 and Java SE 7 update 6, the JavaFX libraries are installed as part of Java SE; a standalone version of JavaFX 2.2 will remain available for Java SE 6 users (Windows only) until Java SE 6 reaches End-of-Life in February 2013.
So the end of life date for Java SE 6 is well past and JavaFX is no longer available for it.
Later versions of JavaFX do not work with old versions of Java such as Java 6.
Unless your client allows your application to run on a later version of Java than Java 6, providing your customer with a JavaFX application is not an option.
Note, that you can bundle the Java runtime with your application as a
self-contained application, then:
- The customer installs your application like they would any other native client application.
- There is no need for to pre-install Java on the machine.
- There is no need to install the Java Webstart or
Applet technology which is the subject of many security attacks.
- If Java is pre-installed on the machine, your app won't interfere with or require changes to the pre-installed Java version.
- When you upgrade your application you can upgrade its bundled Java runtime so that you are always running against a stable runtime you have tested against.
- The Java runtime used by your application cannot be upgraded independently of the application, so your application cannot be broken by a Java update.
- When you create the self-contained application you can make use of the latest available stable Java version available at the time, so you don't need to code to lowest common denominator older versions.
- A self-contained application runs like a standard application (e.g. launched from the desktop), it is not launched from or embedded in a browser window.
I do not recommend using technologies which embed Java applications inside browser windows for large scale client deployments, as those technologies are difficult to implement, secure and support. So, if your requirement is a web application which runs inside a browser, using browser technology such as HTML5 is my recommended method.
If you do choose JavaFX as the framework your application, I recommend utilizing Java 8u20 as the minimum Java version. At least until recent Java 8 releases, JavaFX has
undergone large-scale changes and bug fixes and earlier Java versions do not include those changes. The JavaFX version is now tied to the Java version for official releases, so you cannot execute a recent JavaFX version against an earlier Java version unless you build JavaFX from source (and then the result is not supported or guaranteed to work).
Depending on customer usage requirements, self-contained applications may or may not be appropriate, you will need to do that analysis yourself - the same goes for a html webapp versus JavaFX app analysis. Don't google other people's opinions as likely nobody else will understand the requirements as well as you or your customer; instead determine requirements and choose the technology which is the best fit for the requirements and your personal skill set to deliver on those requirements.
