Handling updates to the JavaFX Caspian look

[Sebastian Damm]

Hello everyone, this is my first mail to the mailing list, so i hope, that
everythink work fine.
First of all i´d like to introduce myself in a sentence: My name is
Sebastian Damm, I´m 23 years old, I´m
just about to finish my apprenticeship as a software developer and I live
in Germany,so please excuse
any spelling or grammar mistakes, thank you =)

I´d like to add my comments to the discussion about potential future
changes of caspian.css respectively an API
to specify the default stylesheet.

As some people already stated, the caspian.css should NEVER be changed i
think, in order to prevent
applications from being 'destroyed'.
But i think, that it would be a good thing, to add (slightly) changed
stylesheets to JavaFX if you
just put a '_v2' prefix or something like that at the end of their name.
Jonathan also mentioned, that there´s a tweaked caspian.css for the Scene
Builder, so what about putting this
into the JavaFX jar as "caspian_v2.css"?
Changes in further versions would result in additional "caspian_vX.css"
files, maybe it would also
be a good idea to name it according to the JavaFX version like
"caspian_v2.1.css", so that it will be clear
that this is the 'original stylesheet' of the 2.1 version.


With a 'setDefaultStylesheet' Method (or
'getDefaultStylesheet().add/set()') in the Scene class
(or even the Application class?) one could specify the stylesheet, that
should be used from now on
through all future releases.
If this isn´t specified, the default stylesheet should always stay the
original caspian.css.


I think, that would be a good idea, becaus no one would ever have to fear,
that his GUI will break/change
due to changes in a newer JavaFX version.
Also every user can choose his favourite default stylesheet.
If some users like a changed stylesheet, that will be included in 2.1, they
can specify it to be the default stylesheet
and the won´t ever have to fear, that future releases will break their
application.

Oracle could also add completely differend stylesheets to JavaFX or even
start a competition for the best 3rd party
stylesheet with prize moneys and an addition to JavaFX for the best three
stylesheets ;)

All different default stylesheets could be exposed through an enumeration
in the Scene class,
because it would be save, everyone would know all the different available
default stylesheets and because
i like enums ;)


I think that it would be nice if users could use this

- scene.setDefaultStylesheet(DEFAULT_STYLESHEETS.CASPIAN_V2);
or
-
scene.setDefaultStylesheet(DEFAULT_STYLESHEETS.CUSTOM_3RD_PARTY_STYLESHEET);

and if they could be certain, that this will stay consistent through all
upcoming JavaFX versions.


If people want to always automatically use the newest stylesheet, maybe a
"caspian_new.css" could be included,
which would always be a copy of the newest version.


Thoughts on this?


Greetings,
Sebastian Damm