Library intended for use in JavaFX applications that makes adding and switching Scenes easy. The Switcher library can be used to quickly add Scenes to your project, and offers a single line of code method to switch out scenes on the fly without all the messy code that goes along with managing Scenes in JavaFX. You simply assign a unique sceneID (int) to your scene, and Switcher takes care of the rest!
There are also three completely runnable test applications under Test that show how to use Switcher from the most common and simple ways to the Lets Get Nuts ways which allow you to even utilize different stages and assign them to your scenes and then with grace and style, you just show the scene with a single and simple line of code.
From within your JavaFX application, You simply add the scene to switcher by supplying a sceneID, Parent, width and height and it's ready to use! You do not need to ever worry about managing the Stage, as Switcher handles that for you! But if you need to also use different stages, we got you covered there as well!
int sceneID = 1;
AnchorPane ap = new AnchorPane();
Switcher.addScene(sceneID,ap,200,200);Then, when you're ready to show your scene, you simply
Switcher.showScene(sceneID);And the rest is handled for you! Even if your scenes have different dimensions, Switcher will properly handle the Stage to accommodate the scenes settings.
The project is available as a Maven dependency on Central. Add the following to POM.xml
<dependency>
<groupId>com.simtechdata</groupId>
<artifactId>Switcher</artifactId>
<version>1.1.5</version>
</dependency>Switcher has more features, making it even more useful in your applications. For example:
Switcher maintains a history of scenes as you show them. This will let you implement a control such as a Button, to just go back to the last shown Scene. You can continue going back to the first scene that you brought up. The proper way to engage this feature, is to create your control that will invoke showLastScene(). Because invoking the last scene will do nothing when you are at the first scene shown, Switcher offers to different BooleanProperties that you can bind to your controls visibleProperty or enabledProperty. Here is how you would set it up.
Button button = new Button("Previous");
button.setOnAction(e-> Switcher.showLastScene());
button.disableProperty().bind(Switcher.getNoHistoryProperty());This configuration will simply disable the button when the user is at the first scene shown without any history in the que. Alternatively you could do this to hide the button when there is no history to go to.
button.visibleProperty().bind(Switcher.getHasHistoryProperty());With some application styles, it might be useful to automatically hide the scene when the user has clicked off of it and onto some other window or program on their computer. You can enable a thread that monitors for lost focus on the stage and when it loses focus, it hides itself.
Switcher.setHideSceneOnLostFocus(true);OR, you can hide the scene yourself
Switcher.setSceneVisible(false);And bring it right back by setting it true;
You can also get the current status of those settings
Switcher.sceneVisible();
Switcher.sceneHiddenOnLostFocus();By default, Switcher will always show the scene in the center of the screen. Even if the user
changes the screen resolution, each call to showScene will re-calculate the correct position.
You can alternatively decide where the scene is placed by setting the X and Y coordinates of the upper left
corner of the stage when you show the scene. You can even change the width and height of the scene that
you originally set when you added the scene.
These setting will persist with subsequent calls to showScene for that sceneID without needing to
pass these values again.
Switcher.showScene(sceneID, stageX, stageY);
Switcher.showScene(sceneID, width, height, stageX, stageY);
Switcher.showSceneWithSize(sceneID, width, height);
Switcher.showSceneWithPosition(sceneID, stageX, stageY);You can include with each Scene, a different stage to show the Scene on. This can be handy if you need different stages with different StageStyles or Modality's. Just like with Scenes, you need to provide a stageID for each different Stage that you want to assign to a given Scene. The most basic way to do this is like this:
Switcher.addScene(sceneID, stageID, Parent, width, height);
Switcher.addScene(sceneID, stageID, Parent, width, height, StageStyle);
Switcher.addScene(sceneID, stageID, Parent, width, height, Modality);
Switcher.addScene(sceneID, stageID, Parent, width, height, StageStyle, Modality);Optionally, you can build your stage before hand, then add it to Switcher like this:
Switcher.addStage(stageID, Stage);Then you simply add Scenes and reference the stageID in the add method
Switcher.addScene(sceneID, stageID, Parent, width, height);Or you can later assign a Stage to a scene after you've already added the Scene
Switcher.assignSceneToStage(sceneID, stageID);Note: The StageStyle and Modality CANNOT be modified once the stage has been shown. Therefore, it is necessary to set up your stages before showing your scenes.
If you need to, you can also remove a scene from Switcher.
Switcher.removeScene(sceneID);
Switcher.removeStage(stageID);If you remove a stage that has been assigned to one or more scenes, Switcher will remove that stage assignment from those connected Scenes and will default them back to the default Stage.
If you're just going to use the default stage that Switcher creates when you just add a scene using the basic addScene method call, you can optionally configure that default stages StageStyle and Modality, but this must be done before ever calling showScene.
Switcher.configureDefaultStage(StageStyle, Modality);If you only want to set one of those two options, then simply pass null into the other one, and it will use the default that Java assigns.
Switcher.configureDefaultStage(StageStyle, null);I'm glad you asked, because you can gain access to any of the stages, including the default stage so that you can assign the setOnCloseRequest method.
Switcher.getStage(stageID).setOnCloseRequest(e-> closeApp());
Switcher.getDefaultStage().setOnCloseRequest(e-> closeApp());In the test folder are three completely runnable programs. You simple run the Main method from any of the packages to see examples of different ways to use Switcher. Also, in the Main class, I have included useful comments that explains everything relevant to that packages implementation style.
Check out the Lets Get Nuts package for the most versatile way of working with Switcher.
Any operating system that supports JavaFX will support Switcher.
If your project uses Switcher, let us know via Pull Request, and we'll feature your project on this README.