Styling JavaFX with CSS

1. Introduction

This tutorial aims to guide you on how to style your JavaFX applications using CSS. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to use CSS for styling JavaFX applications, separating design and logic, and making your code easier to manage.

What the User Will Learn

• Basics of CSS in JavaFX
• How to create and apply CSS to JavaFX nodes
• How to separate design and logic using CSS in JavaFX

Prerequisites

• Basic knowledge of Java
• Basic knowledge of JavaFX
• Basic understanding of CSS

2. Step-by-Step Guide

In JavaFX, you can style your application using CSS similarly to how you style a web page. CSS in JavaFX supports a wide variety of styling properties and can provide a lot of control over the look and feel of your application.

How to apply CSS in JavaFX

You can apply CSS in JavaFX by first creating a CSS file, then linking it to your JavaFX file.

For example, you can create a CSS file styles.css, and in your JavaFX application, you can apply the CSS file as follows:

Scene scene = new Scene(new Group(), 500, 400);
scene.getStylesheets().add("file:styles.css");

In the above example, styles.css is the stylesheet file that contains the CSS rules. The getStylesheets().add() method is used to apply this CSS file to our scene.

Best Practices and Tips

• Separate your CSS code into different CSS files according to their purpose for better organization.
• Use meaningful class names and ids for your JavaFX nodes to make it easier to style them.
• Comment your CSS code to make it easier to understand.

3. Code Examples

Let's look at a practical example of how to style a simple JavaFX application using CSS.

Example 1: Styling a Button

CSS (styles.css):

.button {
    -fx-background-color: lightblue;
    -fx-text-fill: black;
}

JavaFX:

Button btn = new Button("Click Me");
btn.getStyleClass().add("button");

Scene scene = new Scene(new Group(btn), 500, 400);
scene.getStylesheets().add("file:styles.css");

In this example, we first defined a CSS rule for a class button in styles.css. Then, in our JavaFX application, we created a button and added the button class to it. Finally, we applied the styles.css stylesheet to our scene.

The expected output is a button with a light blue background and black text.

4. Summary

In this tutorial, we learned how to style JavaFX applications using CSS. We learned how to create a CSS file, how to apply it to a JavaFX scene, and how to add CSS classes to JavaFX nodes.

For further learning, you can explore more complex JavaFX nodes and how to style them using CSS. You can also explore CSS pseudo classes in JavaFX and how to use them.

5. Practice Exercises

1. Create a JavaFX application with a label and a text field. Style the label with a different font and color, and style the text field with a different background color and border.

2. Create a JavaFX application with a table view. Style the table view with different row colors for even and odd rows.

3. Create a JavaFX application with a list view. Style the list view so that the selected item has a different background color.

Remember, the key to mastering CSS in JavaFX is practice. Try to style different JavaFX nodes and experiment with different CSS properties and values.