Maven Packages

Over the years I developed a bunch of programs for people who requested software from me. However, during the development of these projects a series of interesting components and libraries evolved as part of these projects. In order to modularize and reuse parts of these projects I split them into a collection of packages that I distribute via Maven Central.

CheckedElements ⎘

Sonatype Nexus (Snapshots) Sonatype Nexus (Releases) Maven Central

Motivation

JavaFX is a great way for creating GUIs with Java. However there's no built in way of checking the validity of controls (e.g. text fields in forms) as well as visually showing the validity status and eventually the causes why the inserted data is invalid.

Features

Semantic validation constraints
Extendable mechanism for more validation constraints
Toggle mechanism for validation checks (Enable/disable validation)
Classification of validation violations (warning, error, etc.)
User friendly popup bubbles that show messages clarifying the causes for invalid input
Predefined component (dialog) for listing all validation violations of any currently shown control
Style control via CSS and pseudo classes
Compatibility with FXML

Generic Wizard ⎘

Sonatype Nexus (Snapshots) Sonatype Nexus (Releases) Maven Central

Motivation

JavaFX is a great way for creating GUIs with Java. Nevertheless, it still lacks predefined ways for creating a wizard like user interaction. Furthermore all the user examples and tutorials I found on forums and other websites describe solutions which are bound to their specific application and how the content of the wizard is connected in their special case. I could not find any solution that is flexible and yet powerful enough to provide an easy to use infrastructure for creating wizards.

Features

Abstraction from the actual content of the wizard
History of visited wizard pages
Branching sequences of wizard pages
Constraints on the validity of the input of wizard pages
Dynamic creation of additional wizard pages based on the currently entered user input
Static type safety over the results of any wizard page
Embeddable into other surfaces of the application
Standalone mechanism for any wizard page
CSS styling support

Explanation required for usage

A wizard is a collection of wizard pages with the following properties.

Unique name: Wizard pages reference each other by their unique name.
Finish flag: Marks whether a page is a final page that potentially enables the finish button.
nextFunction: Calculates the name of page to show when clicking on the next button.
INFO! During the calculation of the name the function may dynamically create a new wizard page, attach it to the wizard and return its name.
resultFunction: Generates any desired Java object that stores whatever data the page represents. This might be user input, a selection in a list, checkboxes, any kind of user interface you designed.
validProperty: Determines whether the current page should enable the next button and in case it is a final page the finish button as well. The result may depend on the current input, the state of a certain checkbox , etc.

ScreenSwitcher ⎘

Sonatype Nexus (Snapshots) Sonatype Nexus (Releases) Maven Central

Motivation

JavaFX is a great way for creating GUIs with Java. The creation of multiple surfaces that are connected and navigable is a standard task required by most applications. However, there is no generalized and easy framework for switching between surfaces which are called screens in this library.

Features

Predefined internal architecture for organizing screens
Linear navigable history of screens
Easy integration of custom FXML and resource bundles
Screens can optionally have results e.g. a choose-file-screen
Dynamic creation of screens
Enabling/Disabling message overlay over all screens for blocking input
CSS styling support

WARNING! Do not get confused if screens shine through each other. The screens are stylable with CSS but do not come with a predefined style. To avoid previous screens are visible behind the current screen at least a CSS snippet like the following should be included:


                    .screen {
                        -fx-background-color: white;
                    }

Explanation required for usage

Only two classes are of main interest:

ScreenManager: Each application requires one instance that organizes switching between screens
Screen: Each screen has to implement this abstract base class to be used by a ScreenManager