I'm new to JavaFX, but I'm used to developing/designing applications in WPF for C#, and I want my window to be maximizable due to some hefty controls and lists. Is there an equivalent to WPF's margin in JavaFX so the controls will stay put when the window's size changes?
Thanks in advance!
No, there is no exact equivalent in JavaFX 8 to WPF margin support for all nodes.
A feature request to add node margin support is currently scheduled to be implemented for Java 9.
RT-27785 Add "margin" property to node and make it styleable from CSS
For the use case you detail (having controls stay put when the window's size changes), a couple of potential solutions are:
Use an absolute positioning layout container such as an AnchorPane.
Use a GridPane which has margin support.
Tweak the padding values on your nodes.
Set spacing for hbox/vbox style controls.
Using struts as outlined in James Weaver's (somewhat dated and slightly obsolete) document on JavaFX layout.
Related
I'm developing a application which has a ListView which contains items which needs complex cell layouts. The cells are in variable heights and some of the cells tends to be larger than the view port height.
But when the ListView is filled with items the scroll thumb tends to resize its self while scrolling, which makes it hard to hold onto the thumb while scrolling. This happens mainly when passing through different size of cells.
This is not a problem in Swing if I create a same kind of a cell render to be used with the JList. This problem is there in JavaFX 2 and JavaFX8 both.
When looking at the VirtualFlow which is responsible for layout of the ListView and handle scrolling, it seems that the scrollbar thumb side (lenghtbar) is calculated based on the cell count and the visible cell count, which is actually a problem when it comes to lists which has variable heights of cells.
So is this the future of the scroll bar behavior for Java FX list views? or is there any solution available for this problem? Or should I try to hide the scrollbar and provide a different user interaction to scroll?
This problem is already reported under https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-25059 and fixed in Java8 upto some extend. So if this fix is needed on JavaFx2 we have to backport the changes under commit http://hg.openjdk.java.net/openjfx/8/controls/rt/rev/81cc13fe6f96
To get this changes in JavaFX 2.2 you need to apply the required changes on to FX2.2 VirtualFlow.java class and load those changes before the jfxrt.jar is loaded. Another approach is if you don't like to mess up with the jfxrt classes is to have you own ListView which uses your own Skin and the patched VirtualFlow version may be with a different name. But this might require lot of customization compared to first solution.
More approaches are welcome :).
I'm developing a presentation tool for AIR (to be used together with, or as a replacement to, PowerPoint) but I'm quite a newcomer to flex layouting.
As you can see from the image, the presenter can open various apps from the main window.
Each of these apps open up in new windows which have different visual characteristics; some use the main content area to show graphics, others bullet points. Most app windows have buttons and view stacks with embedded Flash assets (using s:SpriteVisualElement).
My questions are the following:
1a. When developing a PowerPoint-like presentation tool with Flex, which layout type (basic, vertical etc.) will provide most flexibility?
1b. How do I make sure no clipping occurs on various projector screens - which aspect ratio should I have in mind?
2a. How can I resize children sprites in the SpriteVisualElement container proportionally to the window resolution?
2b. And where do I place this resize logic - on each component (sprite) with resizeHandlers or in one resizeHandler / window?
Please use the comment thread if you want me to elaborate further. Thanks.
Since you're new to Flex, I strongly reading up on the Flex Component LifeCycle.
1a. When developing a PowerPoint-like presentation tool with
Flex, which layout type (basic,
vertical etc.) will provide most
flexibility?
The layout you choose will depend on what you want to display. I don't see layouts as "Flexible". They do their job and position their elements appropriately. I can easily envision using all types of layouts in such a complicated application, each for different purposes.
1b. How do I make sure no clipping occurs on various projector screens -
which aspect ratio should I have in
mind?
I'm not quite sure I understand what this question means, but I take it to mean you want to avoid the presence of scroll bars in your app. To do that, you'll have to develop layout code that sizes and positions your children so that they do not extend past the height and width of your available content space. In Flex 3 (Halo) architecture, this would be done by writing an updateDisplayList() method for your component. In the Flex 4 (Spark) architecture, this would probably be done by writing an updateDisplayList() method for your skin class.
2a. How can I resize children sprites in the SpriteVisualElement
container proportionally to the window
resolution?
I believe my above answer already addresses this.
2b. And where do I place this resize logic - on each component
(sprite) with resizeHandlers or in one
resizeHandler / window?
In a resize handler, I would most likely use invalidateSkinState and/or invalidateDisplayList. The resizing code would be in the skin and/or updateDisplayList.
I'm working on a Flex 4 application and I started customizing the interface with skins to give a whole new look.
So, I've created two scrollbar skins in Flash Catalyst (one horizontal, one vertical).
Its working great when I test the application through Catalyst so I took it and imported it on Flash Builder, copied the components and defined the new skins in my css file for the HScrollbar and VScrollbar.
The skin is working, all the buttons are ok. But, the scrollbar isnt resizing for some reason. It remains in the same height I've designed it to be regardless of the content it is bound to.
It scrolls the content in all the ways it should be but it doesnt resize and the thumb isnt getting all the way down.
Also I've noticed the following.
I have a custom component acting as a list. It extends Group and contains a Scroller. So at one place of the application the Scrollthumb is getting lower than on another place where the same custom list is used.
I also have to mention that this scroller works perfectly without a custom skin.
Anyone else having similar problems?
Okay, I know you posted this a while ago but I have been scouring the internet for days looking for why the scrollbar's thumb wasn't scaling like the default scrollbar.
There are a couple things to check, first is there a set height on your thumb's skin?
If not, and this is what I was overlooking, go to your scroller skin and at the point where you add the vertical and horizontal scrollbar set the "fixedThumbSize" property to false.
I suppose that your graphic elements are defined as every single part of the scrollbar (top arrow, bottom arrow, track, etc...): in this case you should check that the elements dimensions are not fixed... they should be in % to be able to change the dimensions based on the container.
I have a Flex app (SDK 3.5 - FP10) that does mindmap trees. Every node is a Canvas (I'm using Canvas specific properties so I needed it). It has a shadow effect, background color and some small ui element on it (like icons, texts...). It works perfectly until it goes over ~700 nodes (Canvas). Over that number it shows grey rectangles. If I turn off the DropShadowFilter effect for the Canvas, they are also gone, so I assume it's a DropShadowFilter problem.
The effect is simple:
private static var _nodeDropShadow:DropShadowFilter = new DropShadowFilter(1, 45, 0x888888, 1, 1, 1);
_backgroundComp.filters = _nodeDropShadow;
Is it possible that Flex can't handle that much?
I think you're exactly right, flex can't handle that many drop shadow filters. They're very expensive. However, if you're using the built in skins, they create bitmap versions of the dropshadows that are less processor intensive. You'll want to set the style "dropShadowEnabled" to true to enable this effect. You'll have less control over this type of dropShadow, but you may be able to get it to do what you want.
For more dropshadow styles, read the style list of mx:Canvas here: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/mx/containers/Canvas.html
Yeah, 700 is a bit much for Flex components. At this level you're going to need to write your own custom components that does the drawing & layout manually. Also I agree with using bitmapCaching to make sure the drop shadow filters aren't being constantly re-rendered.
Is there an easy way to replace the ScrollPane scrollbar with the OS's native scrollbar?
Flash applications look much more integrated if they have the same skinning as the user's operating system -- which isn't always easy to detect (Vista Aero vs. Classic?).
Have you guys come across any examples of Flash apps doing this?
To set up something like this would be a big and dirty job. If you're that concerned with OS look-and-feel integration, you're probably better off using native browser controls rather than Flash or another plugin.
Arguably, you could break up your Flash application into separate SWF modules and put each of them into their own scrolling div or iframe in the page. You'd then have to communicate through ExternalInterface or LocalConnection to pass data between the SWFs. Personally, I'd only be willing to try that as a technical challenge to myself, but I doubt it would be worth the effort for a production application.
For the curious, we separated the scrollpane component into a self-contained swf and placed a set of two nested divs along the right and bottom side of the widget.
Using the vertical scrollbar as an example, the outer div was set to the height of the scrollpane and had a CSS overflow-x of hidden, and an overflow-y of auto. The child div was then set to some arbitrary width and a height equal to the height in px of the scrollpane's content.
The browser would display an appropriately sized "scroll grip" and we could quickly read the vertical scroll offset on the outer div to know how far to offset the Flash scrollpane. The same technique, with appropriate modifications, was used for the horizontal scrollbar.
We also included some logic to auto-hide the containers based on their overflow. The result matched native OS behavior pretty closely.
While this may sound like a huge hack, we were able to widely deploy the solution (scribd.com) without any major issues.
Hate to say it, but there is no way to do this. You could use an OS inspired skin/theme, but even then there's possibilities that the user could have modified their appearance settings with custom colors, sizes, etc.