JavaFx in headless mode

Question

Is it possible to run JavaFx in headless mode(in Java 7)? It is being used to generate images on the server but is asking for an X-Server. Does there exist something like ja

Answer 1

I have an application that can be used interactively (displaying JavaFx dialogs) but also must be able to run non-interactive on a server without display.
Even though no GUI element is used in non-interactive mode, we got

    Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Unable to open DISPLAY
    at com.sun.glass.ui.gtk.GtkApplication.(GtkApplication.java:68)

This happens as soon as a class derived from javafx.application.Application is instantiated, which you normally do with your main class.

Here is the way I solved the problem:

• I created an additional class GuiAppExecution:

  import java.util.List;
  
  import javafx.application.Application;
  import javafx.stage.Stage;
  
  /**
   * JavaFx launch class for {@link AppExecution}.
   */
  public class GuiAppExecution extends Application {
  
    @Override
    public void start(Stage stage) throws Exception {
      List parameters = getParameters().getRaw();
      AppExecution appExecution = new AppExecution();
      appExecution.launch(parameters);
    }
  
    /**
     * Launches the {@link AppExecution} as JavaFx {@link Application}.
     *
     * @param parameters program parameters
     */
    public void launchGui(String[] parameters) {
      launch(parameters);
    }
  }
  

• In the main class AppExecution I created a method
  public void launch(List parameters) {
  which parses the parameters and launches the application for both interactive and non-interactive execution.

• The main method looks like this:

  public static void main(String[] parameters) {
    List parameterList = Arrays.asList(parameters);
    if (parameterList.stream().anyMatch(p -> p.equalsIgnoreCase(BATCH_PARAMETER))) {
      AppExecution appExecution = new AppExecution();
      appExecution.launch(parameterList);
    }
    else {
      GuiAppExecution guiAppExecution = new GuiAppExecution();
      guiAppExecution.launchGui(parameters);
    }
  }
  

  with

  private static final String BATCH_PARAMETER = "-batch";
  

  as the program option that request the non-interactive execution.

Since GuiAppExecution (which is derived from javafx.application.Application) is not instantiated for non-interactive execution, the JavaFx environment is not started.