Duplicate the view of a component in javafx - javafx

Question

I am looking for a way to duplicate just the view of a component in javafx. This duplicate will not have any of the mouse or key events, and will basically be like a canvas.
As long as this duplicate doesn't change, I can use the snapshot(...) method that nodes have. My problem is that I want this to be dynamic. For example, I have one pane which displays some sort of animation (which can depend on user input), and I want a second pane which show the exact same image (but cannot have in itself user input like mouse presses).
The reflection effect is very specific case of what I need. Is there any way to do it in general?
One way to do it (which I used so far) is to just create a second duplicate component and connect all its input to the first. The problem is that this is a lot of work for every component that I want to copy, and it cannot be done generically.
A second way is just to take a snapshot every time the original component changes and copy it to the duplicate. This should be the solution, but I think that there is supposed to be a more low level solution instead of listening to changes, create an Image duplicate and then update an ImageView.

Answer 1

You could use some kind of binding. This is a basic example
import javafx.animation.KeyFrame;
import javafx.animation.Timeline;
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.event.ActionEvent;
import javafx.event.EventHandler;
import javafx.geometry.HPos;
import javafx.geometry.Orientation;
import javafx.geometry.Pos;
import javafx.geometry.VPos;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.control.Control;
import javafx.scene.control.Separator;
import javafx.scene.layout.ColumnConstraints;
import javafx.scene.layout.GridPane;
import javafx.scene.layout.Pane;
import javafx.scene.layout.Priority;
import javafx.scene.layout.RowConstraints;
import javafx.scene.layout.StackPane;
import javafx.scene.paint.Color;
import javafx.scene.shape.Circle;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import javafx.util.Duration;
/**
*
* #author blj0011
*/
public class JavaFXTestingGround extends Application
{
/**
* #param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args)
{
launch(args);
}
Circle circle = new Circle(0, 200, 25, Color.BLUE);
Circle duplicateCircle = new Circle(25, Color.BLUE);
#Override
public void start(Stage primaryStage)
{
duplicateCircle.centerXProperty().bind(circle.centerXProperty());
duplicateCircle.centerYProperty().bind(circle.centerYProperty());
Timeline timeline = new Timeline(new KeyFrame(Duration.seconds(1.0 / 40.0), (ActionEvent t) -> {
circle.setCenterX(circle.getCenterX() + 1);
}));
timeline.setCycleCount(Timeline.INDEFINITE);
circle.setOnMouseClicked((t) -> {
switch (timeline.getStatus()) {
case STOPPED:
timeline.play();
break;
case RUNNING:
timeline.stop();
break;
}
});
Pane root = new Pane(circle);
primaryStage.setTitle("Test");
primaryStage.setScene(new Scene(root, 400, 400));
primaryStage.show();
Pane duplicateRoot = new Pane(duplicateCircle);
Stage duplicatStage = new Stage();
duplicatStage.setScene(new Scene(duplicateRoot, 400, 400));
duplicatStage.setX(primaryStage.getX() + primaryStage.getWidth() + 10);
duplicatStage.setY(primaryStage.getY());
duplicatStage.show();
}
}