FXML vs XAML : Similarities and Differences
At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, meanwhile, the development of desktop applications had been a long and complex process that would produce low-quality User Interfaces, web development was getting more attention from the large communities of developers around the world. Web development was popular due to the easiness of Task Partitioning and the implementation of patterns like MVC.
What is XML
XML, eXtensive Markup Language, is a metalanguage that allows users to define their customized markup language depending on the needs to be satisfied.
XML was designed to display, store and transport arbitrary data structures in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable, emphasizing simplicity, generality and, usability across its applications.
History of XML
XML is a descendant of Standard Generalized Markup Language that was designed by professor Charles Goldfarb, Ed Mosher, and Ray Lorie at IBM in the 1970s.
W3C created XML to provide a solution to the issues that writing in HTML and SGML would produce. One of those issues is that SGML was hard to learn, and it would take a long time for developers to write a good SGML document. On the other hand, HTML was more of a data representation on a web page than a data structure solution. XML is an easy solution to structure and exchange data between diverse systems and software applications.
Due to the crushing need to simplify SGML, W3C sponsored a group of SGML experts like Jon Bosak from Sun Microsystems and Tim Bray, and others to work on what would become later XML.
In 1998, W3C approved version 1.0 of the XML specification, and it was an immediate success.
XAML Definition
XAML or eXtensible Application Markup Language is a declarative XML-based language. Microsoft had designed by XAML to write Graphical User Interfaces (GUI).
XAML was introduced in 2006 alongside Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) as part of the .NET framework 3.0 and, later on, was adopted by other Microsoft technologies like WinForms, Silverlight, and Universal Windows Platform (UWP).
XAML uses the XML format for elements and attributes. Every XAML Element represents an object which is an instance of a type.
XAML shares with HTML the easiness of implementation and readability for both humans and machines.
FXML Definition
FXML is an XML-based language designed to build Graphical User Interfaces for JavaFX applications. FXML allows developers to separate the User Interface logic from business logic in a manner that any change on either side would not affect the other one directly. Oracle Corporation created FXML to make the application development process easy.
Uses of XAML
Microsoft had created many technologies to make software development easier on Windows (its proprietary Operating System). The coming of WPF and XAML changed the way developers used to see heavy client desktop applications. What XAML could deliver was coding the User Interface without interfering with business logic in a very consistent fashion.
The process of separating interface design from business logic was close to what web developers used to do, developing the front-end and the back-end in parallel. The approach that Microsoft had adopted had been successful and made it look attractive to other developers. And that motivated the company to implement the technology with technologies and platforms like Xamarin.Forms for Mobile platforms, UWP for Windows, and Silverlight for Rich Web Applications.
Uses of FXML
FXML is used mainly in JavaFX applications. JavaFX, as wrapping technology, is dedicated to creating Client Desktop Applications, Rich Web Applications, and games. Developers can use FXML with any language that runs on JVM (Java Virtual Machine) we mention here, for example, Kotlin.
Many scripting languages could be written within an FXML file. As for mobile application development, we should talk about Gluon. Gluon is a Java API that assists in creating JavaFX Applications especially, Mobile’s. This API makes Mobile Application Development in JavaFX easier with better Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) considering other options on the market.
Similarities between XAML and FXML
The necessity of creating a nice-looking and easy-to-use GUI had forced many companies to adopt methods that would make development easier and faster. We could use Graphical Libraries and Frameworks.
That was not sufficient for many reasons, such as a long learning curve and longer coding files. XAML and FXML came as a solution motivated by the same issue, and both had congruent visions.
They are both XML-based languages, strongly support MVC pattern, and each their GUI Builder (Scene Builder for JavaFX, Blend, and Built-in designer for Visual Studio).
XAML and FXML provide strong Data Binding and help organize applications in logic and structure.
Differences between XAML and FXML
Considering Java and C# as critical factors, we see that despite the actual similarities between XAML and FXML, the implementation of each had produced many differences in many fields of application.
Integration
XAML is relatively better in integration with C# than FXML with Java.
Element Definition
An element can be declared and well detailed in XAML, but, in FXML, the declaration of any Element still needs to be in code behind. As for styling, in comparison with FXML, CSS with JavaFX can be easy and help write shorter files. In XAML, styling is easy, especially for those who have prior CSS Experience.
Platform
XAML is a Windows (OS) based Markup Language, generally used with WPF and UWP applications.
Like every Java application, JavaFX is cross-platform, which means writing FXML for one app that runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
FXML and XAML offer two big sets of features making both solutions easy to use, efficient, and shorten a long process that developers used to execute with no other options at hand.
