Proposal: RichTextArea Control (Incubator)

[Christopher Schnick]

Hey Andy and others,

from my perspective as an application developer, I would look for 
providing an abstract but robust implementation that would allow anyone 
to implement such a concrete rich text field without any roadblocks. 
Maybe even going as far as going for a more abstract implementation than 
text areas. I.e. allowing you to define any kind of data model class 
which can be flexibly represented by a set of compound nodes and 
controls and can update and reflect the model state dynamically.

I think that way you would also get a few more people on board who are 
not currently longing for a rich text area because they are either 
satisfied with the existing solutions or their applications that they 
typically work with do not use them. If such a work effort could benefit 
more areas of JavaFX than just rich text editing, people would be happy 
to jump on board.

Instead of creating a RichParagraph.Builder, why not create a more 
generic CompoundControlSegment.Builder, CompoundControl.Builder, 
CompoundControl, etc.? I.e. being able to easily add arbitrary nodes and 
controls in segments/lines, also allowing for an easy way to set style 
classes and inline styles. Being able to bind each node's contents to 
part of the data model, having some undo/redo functionality for this 
model. The StyledAttribute and StyleHandlerRegistry concept can also be 
applied to more than just text areas. And also the idea of the 
ConfigurationParameters to allow for an easy but custom handling of 
other things such as scrollbars for the resulting compound control. This 
would allow developers to use these same principles for other 
implementations as well, for example creating forms. And I can 
definitely find some use for such a concept in other places far away 
from text areas as well.

The proposed actual rich text area can then still be included as a 
concrete implementation of this absraction.

Best
Christopher Schnick

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
>
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