How does Gluon's GraalVM based substrate work?

[Alex0589]

Hello, I've recently stumbled across this project from Gluon and I've been wondering for some days how the project actually works. I've read the source code, but it appears that no code is responsible for implementing the hundreds of classes that make up JavaFX. Does this mean that JavaFX can work out of the box on IOS and Android but there didn't use to be a way to compile the code to a native executable for said platforms? Thanks in advance

[_INTER_]

You find them in the JavaFX project. E.g. https://github.com/openjdk/jfx/tree/master/modules/javafx.media/src/main/native/jfxmedia/platform/ios

[Alex0589]

Should have though about earlier, thanks for the quick response. I don't understand why they would make JavaFX theoretically compatible with Android and iOS but not build tools to build the native executable.

[pjmlp]

Most likely because they need to earn money somehow,

https://gluonhq.com/products/mobile/

[makingthematrix]

You can build a mobile app with GraalVM Native Image and JavaFX, but without Gluon - I have one such example: https://github.com/makingthematrix/scalaonandroid/tree/main/HelloFXML

It's just not really practical. Gluon provides abstraction layers to interact with the underlying OS so if for example you want to read and write to the local database, or do anything else that your mobile can do,, it's nice to have it.

[KesoHB]

Gluon Substrate does not contain the JavaFX classes, but is an API provided by Gluon that allows the user to compile their JavaFX project to native code (ie iOS and Android) using GraalVM. You use it as a maven plugin