Proposal: RichTextArea Control (Incubator)

[John Hendrikx]

Hi,

Far be it from me to tell the FX team what it should do, I am still 
wondering the following:

- A 3rd party control, RichTextFX already exists -- what is this new 
proposal adding that RichTextFX does not have?
- What (if anything) is stopping a 3rd party from building a 
RichTextArea themselves?

In other words, I think the FX team ought to focus on **facilitating** 
the building of complex controls like RichTextArea, by identifying gaps 
in the current Control API that is **stopping** 3rd parties from doing 
this themselves in the same integrated manner as a "native" FX control.

Enabling thousands or tens of thousand of developers to build more 
complicated controls seems to me like a much better investment than what 
I think will be a significant investment in one of the most complex 
controls imaginable.  RichTextFX was actively developed over a 4 year 
period, with 45 contributors and over 1400 commits (for comparison, 
JavaFX had 250 commits in the past year).  If it will be significantly 
less complicated, then what does it offer over RichTextFX?

--John

On 21/02/2024 19:07, Andy Goryachev wrote:
>
> Dear JavaFX developers:
>
> We would like to propose a new feature - rich text control, 
> RichTextArea, intended to bridge the functional gap with Swing and its 
> StyledEditorKit/JEditorPane.  The main design goal is to provide a 
> control that is complete enough to be useful out-of-the box, as well 
> as open to extension by the application developers.
>
> This is a complex feature with a large API surface that would be 
> nearly impossible to get right the first time, even after an extensive 
> review.  We are, therefore, introducing this in an incubating module, 
> *javafx.incubator.richtext*. This will allow us to evolve the API in 
> future releases without the strict compatibility constraints that 
> other JavaFX modules have.
>
> Please take a look at the proposal [0], a list of discussion points 
> [1], and the API Specification (javadoc) [2]. While the proposed API 
> is ready for review, it isn't complete nor set in stone. We are 
> looking for feedback, and will update the proposal based on the 
> suggestions we receive from the community.  We encourage you to 
> comment either in the mailing list, or by leaving comments inline in a 
> draft pull request [3].  For context, the links to the original RFE 
> [4] and a list of missing APIs related to rich text [5] are provided 
> below.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Your friendly JavaFX development team.
>
> References
>
> [0] Proposal: 
> https://github.com/andy-goryachev-oracle/Test/blob/rich.jep.review/doc/RichTextArea/RichTextArea.md
>
> [1] Discussion points: 
> https://github.com/andy-goryachev-oracle/Test/blob/rich.jep.review/doc/RichTextArea/RichTextAreaDiscussion.md
>
> [2] API specification (javadoc): 
> https://cr.openjdk.org/~angorya/RichTextArea/javadoc
>
> [3] Draft Pull Request for API comments and feedback: 
> https://github.com/openjdk/jfx/pull/1374
>
> [4] RichTextArea RFE: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8301121
>
> [5] Missing APIs related to rich text control: 
> https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8300569
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.openjdk.org/pipermail/openjfx-dev/attachments/20240223/5a692bb3/attachment.htm>