RichTextArea: API Review

[quizynox]

Hello,

> As also mentioned in the proposal, there are already 3rd party RTAs - 
> RichTextFX and Gluon's. Does the proposed RTA offer more than these 
> (besides the ease of use by being in JavaFX)? Do the building blocks 
> of these offer advantages that the proposed building blocks don't? An 
> abstract test that can be done is to see if these controls can be 
> "retrofitted" with the proposed new building blocks (no need to 
> actually rewrite the code). If not, it could hint to an 
> incompatibility or a limit of the proposal that makes it less appealing.

- Gluon's RTA is dual-licensed, so unlike OpenJFX, it is not free for 
commercial projects (even internal non-profit projects). It can't be an 
alternative, because of this alone.
- RichTextFX depends on several long-unmaintained libraries, namely 
ReactFX. There is nothing that can be done from the OpenJFX side, as it 
would require rewriting RichTextFX from scratch.

I don't think anyone expects OpenJFX to provide something as complex as 
CodeMirror. However, having a basic rich text control with reasonable 
extension points would already be a significant improvement.

On 14/08/2024 16.03, Nir Lisker wrote:
> My questions are similar to the ones in the previous discussion, but 
> now I can be more specific.
>
> I see a list of "building blocks" in 
> https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8300569, which I like. 
> Specifically, two types of building blocks additions are important as 
> I see it: rich text-specific ones like document models and a way to 
> add decorations/colors etc., and the split of controls in general into 
> skin/input/behavior (on which there has been a long discussion). My 
> questions are:
>
> 1. If these are provided to the user, how difficult is it for them to 
> compose a RTA? JavaFX doesn't provide some somewhat-common controls 
> that you see in various other libraries with the reasoning that the 
> library should give the user the ability to create their own controls 
> (which is not so easy right now). Is RTA an exception, like 
> ColorPicker and DatePicker?
> 2. Can these building blocks be used to enhance existing controls? For 
> example, to help with TextArea's performance with long texts, or allow 
> rich text-like features in other controls, like the squiggly red line 
> under the text in a TextField?
> 3. As also mentioned in the proposal, there are already 3rd party RTAs 
> - RichTextFX and Gluon's. Does the proposed RTA offer more than these 
> (besides the ease of use by being in JavaFX)? Do the building blocks 
> of these offer advantages that the proposed building blocks don't? An 
> abstract test that can be done is to see if these controls can be 
> "retrofitted" with the proposed new building blocks (no need to 
> actually rewrite the code). If not, it could hint to an 
> incompatibility or a limit of the proposal that makes it less appealing.
>
> Thanks,
> Nir
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 2, 2024 at 10:41 PM Andy Goryachev 
> <andy.goryachev at oracle.com> wrote:
>
>     Dear fellow developers:
>
>     Thank you for the early feedback on the RichTextArea proposal [0].
>
>     We are moving to the next phase by submitting the public pull
>     request [1].The main goal is to include the new control in an
>     incubating module [8], hopefully in jfx24, as a means of putting
>     non-final API in the hands of developers while the API and
>     implementation progress towards either finalization or removal in
>     a future release.
>
>     For your convenience, two test applications are provided -
>     *RichTextAreaDemoApp* and *CodeAreaDemoApp* which demonstrate the
>     new controls with a number of different models.In addition to
>     these two testers, please check out a simple standalone rich text
>     editor application, *RichEditorDemoApp*,
>
>     We would encourage anyone - the javafx developers, and especially
>     the application developers, to take a look at the public API
>     [3].It's probably less important at this stage to do a deep code
>     review of the implementation, but we would certainly appreciate
>     and welcome your code review comments.
>
>     Thank you in advance,
>
>     -andy
>
>     [0] Proposal:
>     https://github.com/andy-goryachev-oracle/Test/blob/main/doc/RichTextArea/RichTextArea.md
>
>     [1] Pull request: https://github.com/openjdk/jfx/pull/1524
>
>     [2] Discussion points:
>     https://github.com/andy-goryachev-oracle/Test/blob/main/doc/RichTextArea/RichTextAreaDiscussion.md
>
>     [3] API specification (javadoc):
>     https://cr.openjdk.org/~angorya/RichTextArea/javadoc
>
>     [4] CSS Reference:
>     https://cr.openjdk.org/~angorya/RichTextArea/javadoc/javafx.graphics/javafx/scene/doc-files/cssref.html
>
>     [5] Behavior doc:
>     https://github.com/andy-goryachev-oracle/jfx/blob/8301121.RichTextArea/doc-files/behavior/RichTextAreaBehavior.md
>
>     [6] RichTextArea RFE: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8301121
>     <https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8301121>
>
>     [7] Previous (now obsolete) draft pull request:
>     https://github.com/openjdk/jfx/pull/1374
>
>     [8] Incubator module JEP:
>     https://github.com/kevinrushforth/jfx/blob/javafx.incubator/INCUBATOR-MODULES.md
>
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