Issue
since .jar is not anymore the best format to use to distribute our JavaFX project, I'm willing to use the tool JPackage for that instead, but after reading this post : https://stackoverflow.com/a/68823040/4262407, I ended up having multiple questions, but first of all, I just wanna make sure I ve well understood the process that I should follow :
the process :
1-create a modular project
2-package the project in a .jar format
3-use the tool Jlink to create a customized run-time image (to reduce the size of the output)
4-use the tool jpackage (it takes 2 and 3 as inputs)
I'm also wondering if I can rely on Intellij artifacts to create the .jar file (the 2 step) is it better to use a specific plugin ?
The last thing that is not clear is do we need to include the dependencies in the .jar file ? since I believe they will be included in the customized run time, won't they?
Solution
If you take a look here, there is an explanation on how to create JavaFX projects starting from a template that includes Maven plugins to easily pack the application using jlink.
Doing it like this will allow you to completely rely on IntelliJ, making things much easier.
Once you have your runtime image, you can pack it with jpackage. There was already a discussion about this topic here.
And here is a fast link to the article mentioned there. The article there shows it using Gradle, but you can do the same with Maven, just use the appropriate plugin (jpackage-maven-plugin, as stated in another answer here).
Also, from what I can read in your comments, it seems that you have both modular and non-modular dependencies. In that case, you can use jdeps to achieve what you need. There is a nice article here about having mixed dependencies, that specifically uses JavaFX as an example of modular library within a non-modular application.
Answered By - flyingsquirrel01
Answer Checked By - Marilyn (JavaFixing Volunteer)
