JavaFX – Custom “Window”

AWT/Swing provides various top level windows such as Window, Frame, Dialog. javafx.stage.Stage is roughly the equivalent for Frame. We can instantiate and show multiple instance of Stage, or we may use Swing windows. But still it may not be convenient and will impact the look and feel of application (especially when deployed as Applet in Browser).

It may not be possible to emulate all features provided by Frame/Dialog (especially Modal-Dialog), but we may implement a CustomNode which has some basic look and functionality. Here is an attempt..

To launch click on above image or

Try it out and let me know feedback..

var dzone_style = ’2′;

JavaFX – Custom Layout

In one of the previous post I suggested to use Layout and Layout related attributes. But it didn’t clearly demonstrate how to use that for developing an application. So here is an example which uses Panel to layout the components.

To launch click on above image or

The components can be positioned using various methods available in Container such as getManaged, getNodePrefSize, positionNode, resizeNode and layoutNode. The entire layout of components is done in onLayout function. This function will be invoked when ever there is need to layout the content nodes. We may explicitly update layout using requestLayout function.

Try it out and let me know feedback..

JavaFX – Custom Feed Parsers

In one of my previous post I have described the use of RSS and ATOM Task to parse the feeds.

Unfortunately many feeds do not strictly comply with the RSS/ATOM format. Example: In some cases the date specified for pubDate element may be in wrong format, or its an invalid date or the information specified is embedded in CDATA instead of TEXT. The parser will fail for such scenarios. Hence we need to implement custom parsers so as to handle the situation.

Below sample reads engadget rss feed..

For Applet mode, click on above image

Both RssTask and AtomTask API provide an attribute – factory – which can be used to specify custom implementation of RSS or ATOM Factory. Users may also customize various elements such as Channel, Item, Entry, Feed by overriding functions such as – fromXML, tryParseDate etc.

Example: In some cases the default parser fails to convert pubDate to valid DateTime instance. So a new attribute – pubDateText – is added so as to save the date as String.

/**  * Customize Item so as to override fromXML  */ class CustomItem extends Item {          public-read var pubDateText : String;          override function fromXML(parser: PullParser): Void {                  if(parser.event.qname == PUB_DATE) {             if ((parser.event.type == PullParser.TEXT) or                 (parser.event.type == PullParser.CDATA)) {                 pubDateText = stripCDATA(parser.event.text)             }         } else if(parser.event.qname == TITLE) {             title = stripCDATA(parser.event.text);         } else {             super.fromXML(parser);         }     } }

Now we need to implement a custom Factory which will instantiate and return the above CustomItem instance.

/**  * Customize Factory so as to return CustomItem  */ class CustomFactory extends Factory {     public override function newItem(c: Channel) : Item {         CustomItem { parent: c channel: c }     } }

Above Factory is set in factory attribute of RssTask as shown below.

var rssTask = RssTask {     // set custom factory     factory: CustomFactory { }     location: "http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml"     onChannel: function(channel) {  }     onItem: function(item) { } } rssTask.start();

Update: Please refer to SpeedReaderFX by Jim Weaver for real world example.

Try it out and let me know feedback

var dzone_style = ’2′;

JavaFX – Register Font

In one of my previous post I discussed about how to bundle custom font along with application. Recently I came across another query related to registering a custom font. Java API – Font.createFont(int fontFormat, InputStream fontStream) provides a way to create an instance of AWT font. Once created the font needs to be registered so that it can be loaded using the font name or family name. JavaSE 6.0 and above has API – GraphicsEnvironment.registerFont(Font font) for this purpose.

Problem:

• API is available only since JavaSE 6.0, it may not be possible to use these APIs directly from JavaFX (which enforce JavaSE 5.0 compatibility)
• API involves loading of font over network, so we need to perform this operation in background thread so as to avoid freezing the user interface

Solution:

• Use Java Reflection APIs to invoke registerFont method
• Use JavaFX Asynchronous APIs so as to execute above method in background thread

In below example, font – RRRaghuMalayalam.ttf is downloaded from specified URL and registered. Launch application and click on “Register Font” button. The application is signed since it access resource from another domain.

For Applet mode, click on above image

For standalone mode

Note: You may have to wait for a while until the font is downloaded from the URL and registered. Sample requires JavaSE 6.0 or above.

// Register Font var registerFontTask = RegisterFontTask {     url: font-url     onDone: function() {         text.font = Font {              name: "<font-name>"              size: 40          };     } }; registerFontTask.start();

Try it out and let me know feedback

var dzone_style = ’2′;

“Can JavaFX speak my language?”

An attempt to answer two simple questions…

• Can JavaFX speak my language?
• How to load custom fonts in JavaFX?

There are many languages for which Java does not provide built-in support. Also you may want to use some nice custom font instead of the logical font. You may also want to ensure that the application looks fine across platforms and does not render boxes or look ugly on some platforms.

JavaFX allows you to package your font along with the application. So that you can use the font with your application and its guaranteed that the application looks fine on all platforms. Here I’ll try to render some characters using my mother tongue – Malayalam. Oh! Yes! its a palindrome.

First I downloaded Malayalam font from Indix website. I’ll use RRRaghuMalayalam.ttf in my application.

I copied the RRRaghuMalayalam.ttf font file under src/fontttf/fonts/ directory. fontttf is package name of the application. Next I created a mapping file – fonts.mf under src/META-INF/. In mapping file I specified a name for the font and the location of font as shown below. I named the font as Malayalam Font.


Malayalam\ Font = /fontttf/fonts/RRRaghuMalayalam.ttf


Now the directory structure looks as shown below.

Now lets use this new font in our application. That is simple!.
We can just specify the font name as “Malayalam Font”.
No additional settings required.


Text {
    font: Font {
        name: "Malayalam Font"
        size: 40
    }
    content: "\u0d2e\u0d32\u0d2f\u0d3e\u0d33\u0d02"
}


For Applet mode, click on above image

For standalone mode

Cool! Now JavaFX can speak my language! Can it speak your language?

You need to try it out!

Source:

• FontTTF.fx
• fonts.mf