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Spring JavaFX Boot

A Spring Boot starter for building JavaFX desktop applications with Spring MVC-inspired routing, internationalization, and window management.

Why Spring JavaFX Boot?

Building JavaFX applications with Spring Boot is powerful but often involves a lot of boilerplate — wiring up FXML loaders, managing navigation between views, and bridging Spring's i18n with JavaFX. Spring JavaFX Boot solves this by providing a cohesive framework that brings familiar patterns from Spring MVC and Angular to the desktop.

Key Features

  • Spring MVC-style routing — Define routes with @FxRoutes and @FxMapping, just like @RestController and @GetMapping
  • Nested child routing — Angular-inspired @RouterOutlet for composing layouts with swappable child views
  • Windows and modals — Open routes in new windows or modal dialogs with typed return values
  • Internationalization — Spring MessageSource bridged to JavaFX's ResourceBundle for seamless i18n
  • Title management — Declarative or programmatic window titles with i18n support
  • Auto-configuration — Everything is auto-configured with @ConditionalOnMissingBean — override any component

Tech Stack

Component Version
Java 17+
Spring Boot 4.0.4
JavaFX 21.0.5
Lombok managed by Spring Boot
Maven 3.x (wrapper included)

Project Modules

The project consists of three modules:

Module Purpose
spring-javafx-boot-starter Reusable library — add as a dependency to get routing, view resolution, i18n, and more
spring-javafx-boot-demo Complete example application demonstrating all starter features
spring-javafx-boot-archetype Maven archetype for generating a quickstart project with routing, layout, and i18n pre-configured

Quick Example

Define routes in a configuration class:

@FxRoutes
public class AppRoutes {

    @FxMapping("/")
    public String layout(FxModel model) {
        return "layout";  // loads /templates/layout.fxml
    }

    @FxMapping(value = "/main", parent = "/", title = "page.title.main")
    public String main(FxModel model) {
        model.put("greeting", "Hello!");
        return "main";  // rendered inside layout's @RouterOutlet
    }
}

Navigate between views:

router.navigateTo("/main");
router.navigateTo("/settings", Map.of("tab", "appearance"));

Open modal dialogs with typed results:

WindowResult<String> result = router.openModal("/picker",
    new WindowOptions().title("Select item").size(400, 300));
result.get().ifPresent(value -> label.setText(value));

Getting Started

Head over to the Installation guide to add Spring JavaFX Boot to your project, or use the Quickstart to generate a ready-to-run project with the Maven archetype.