JavaFX

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli

Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1
School of Computer Science and Engineering
VIT-AP University

July 6, 2022

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
1/9
 JavaFX Application Structure

JavaFX application is divided hierarchically into three main components

known as Stage, Scene and nodes. We need to import
javafx.application.Application class in every JavaFX application. This
provides the following life cycle methods for JavaFX application.
public void init()
public abstract void start(Stage primaryStage)
public void stop()
to create a basic JavaFX application, we need to:
Import javafx.application.Application into our code.
Inherit Application into our class.
Override start() method of Application class.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
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 Stage Stage in a JavaFX application is similar to the Frame in a Swing
Application. It acts like a container for all the JavaFX objects. Primary
Stage is created internally by the platform. Other stages can further be
created by the application. The object of primary stage is passed to start
method. We need to call show method on the primary stage object in
order to show our primary stage.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
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 Scene- Scene actually holds all the physical contents (nodes) of a
JavaFX application.
Javafx.scene.Scene class provides all the methods to deal with a scene
object. Creating scene is necessary in order to visualize the contents
on the stage.
At one instance, the scene object can only be added to one stage. In
order to implement Scene in our JavaFX application, we must import
javafx.scene package in our code.
The Scene can be created by creating the Scene class object and
passing the layout object into the Scene class constructor.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
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 Scene Graph- Scene Graph exists at the lowest level of the hierarchy.
It can be seen as the collection of various nodes. A node is the
element which is visualized on the stage. It can be any button, text
box, layout, image, radio button, check box, etc.
The leaf nodes exist at the lowest level in the tree hierarchy. Each of
the node present in the scene graphs represents classes of javafx.scene
package therefore we need to import the package into our application
in order to create a full featured javafx application.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
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Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX
School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
6/9
 Creating Our first JavaFX Application

Step 1: Extend javafx.application.Application and override start()

start() method is the starting point of constructing a JavaFX
application therefore we need to first override start method of
javafx.application.Application class.
Object of the class javafx.stage.Stage is passed into the start()
method therefore import this class and pass its object into start
method.
JavaFX.application.Application needs to be imported in order to
override start method.
Step 2: Create a Button
A button can be created by instantiating the javafx.scene.control.Button
class. For this, we have to import this class into our code. Pass the button
label text in Button class constructor.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
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 Step 3: Create a layout and add button to it JavaFX provides the
number of layouts. We need to implement one of them in order to
visualize the widgets properly. It exists at the top level of the scene graph
and can be seen as a root node. All the other nodes (buttons, texts, etc.)
need to be added to this layout.
In this application, we have implemented StackPane layout. It can be
implemented by instantiating javafx.scene.layout.StackPane class.
Step 4: Create a Scene The layout needs to be added to a scene. Scene
remains at the higher level in the hierarchy of application structure.
It can be created by instantiating javafx.scene.Scene class. We need to
pass the layout object to the scene class constructor.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
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 Step 5: Prepare the Stage javafx.stage.Stage class provides some
important methods which are required to be called to set some attributes
for the stage. We can set the title of the stage. We also need to call
show() method without which, the stage won’t be shown.
Step 6: Create an event for the button
As our application prints hello world for an event on the button. We need
to create an event for the button. For this purpose, call setOnAction() on
the button and define a anonymous class Event Handler as a parameter to
the method.
Inside this anonymous class, define a method handle() which contains the
code for how the event is handled.
Step 7: Create the main method
Till now, we have configured all the necessary things which are required to
develop a basic JavaFX application but this application is still incomplete.
We have not created main method yet. Hence, at the last, we need to
create a main method in which we will launch the application i.e. will call
launch() method and pass the command line arguments (args) to it.

Dr. S Sudheer Mangalampalli Assistant Professor, Senior Grade1JavaFX

School of Computer Science and Engineering July
VIT-AP
6, 2022
University
9/9