JavaFX Text styling for dynamic objects - css

Question

I'm using a ListView in my program with many, many styled Text's. Currently, I'm doing something like this
case COMMENT:
t = new Text(lexer.comment.toString());
t.setStyle(BASE_STYLE + COMMENT_STYLE);
where the style is stored as java string. I do have a global.css in my application which is used to style some static nodes of the scene, but for the programatically created texts I don't know how to access this. I tried using t.setId(..) and put a style definition in the css file but this doesn't work.
Is there a way that I can store all styles for my different text types in one css and access them easily? Note that I'm creating many of those text objects.

Answer 1

There are three ways to apply CSS styling to a JavaFX Node (or a combination of them):
As Tom mentioned, a Nodes css style classes are accessed via Node.getStyleClass(). This returns an ObservableList where you can add and remove your style classes.
If you change a Nodes style rather often, it is better to use pseudo selectors, like :hover or :active with Node.pseudoClassStateChanged().
The third option you already discovered (setStyle()), but I dislike this option because moving the CSS parts into a seperate file offers many advantages.
For #1 and #2 you need to attach a Stylesheet to the Scene/Node, with Scene.getStylesheets() or Parent.getStylesheets(), where your CSS definitions are stored. For example:
listView.getStylesheets().add(getClass().getResource("myStyles.css").toExternalForm());
Addtional info for #1:
If you want to add the style-class my-node to a JavaFX Node:
node.getStyleClass().add("my-node");
now you can style that node in your CSS file:
.my-node {}
Addtional info for #2:
You can declare and use your own pseudo-class with
PseudoClass comment = PseudoClass.getPseudoClass("comment");
node.pseudoClassStateChanged(comment, true);
node.pseudoClassStateChanged(comment, false);
And in your css file:
.my-node:comment {}