RFR: 8355774: RichTextArea: provide mechanism for CSS styling of highlights
Andy Goryachev
andy.goryachev at oracle.com
Mon May 12 16:28:28 UTC 2025
Pavel:
Underlines and strike-through attributes are available via StyleAttributeMap.STRIKE_THROUGH and StyleAttributeMap.UNDERLINE (using text color). On the other hand, adding this functionality via addHighlight() would allow the application to style the shapes via CSS.
-andy
From: openjfx-dev <openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org> on behalf of PavelTurk <pavelturk2000 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 22:18
To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.org <openjfx-dev at openjdk.org>
Subject: Re: RFR: 8355774: RichTextArea: provide mechanism for CSS styling of highlights
Andy, I'm really glad we figured out the background-color issue, and I'm also very grateful to you!
Regarding wavy lines and other types of underlining — in my previous message, I listed the key attributes
that are essential for a modern CodeArea. For example, underline for links — I don't think it's necessary to write
that the internet is extremely popular today and that links in code are common practice, and so on.
Of course, all of these properties should be set via a CSS file, since that's the most efficient way to use CSS —
when styling is completely separated from logic.
So, the list contains five properties. If two of them are not supported, that means (to me) that only 60% of the
core properties are supported.
That's just my feedback — the decision is, of course, yours :)
Best regards, Pavel
On 5/9/25 00:09, Andy Goryachev wrote:
The only property that makes sense is the background color. The wavy and other kinds of underlines, while they make some sense in the context of the CodeArea, would fail in general in the context of RichTextArea where the content may include nodes and images. The highlights were designed specifically for the case to highlight the content range regardless of what is in it.
I've reopened https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8356436 for the background color.
Thank you for your patience and good suggestions!
-andy
From: openjfx-dev <openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org><mailto:openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org> on behalf of PavelTurk <pavelturk2000 at gmail.com><mailto:pavelturk2000 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 13:13
To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.org<mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.org> <openjfx-dev at openjdk.org><mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.org>
Subject: Re: RFR: 8355774: RichTextArea: provide mechanism for CSS styling of highlights
Since we’re talking about code styling, I would highlight the following as the main properties:
- foreground color (+)
- background color (-)
- font (weight, italic, size, name) (+)
- underline (e.g. for links) (?)
- wavy underline (e.g. for spelling) (-)
I think these properties cover 99% of all the necessary properties for CodeArea.
I used + and - to show what has already been implemented.
Best regards, Pavel
On 5/8/25 22:21, Andy Goryachev wrote:
Oh, I finally get it what you want. Thanks!
What you asking is effectively to add support for some additional properties to the class that renders the text segment (currently, Text). My first question is - what are the additional properties, beside the background-color? If it's only the background color, it's probably easy to add.
Anything beyond that, such as equivalent of full -fx-region-background or -fx-region-border, would be extremely unlikely.
-andy
From: openjfx-dev <openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org><mailto:openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org> on behalf of PavelTurk <pavelturk2000 at gmail.com><mailto:pavelturk2000 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 11:44
To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.org<mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.org> <openjfx-dev at openjdk.org><mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.org>
Subject: Re: RFR: 8355774: RichTextArea: provide mechanism for CSS styling of highlights
Andy, thank you for your reply.
I have already provided some examples, but I’ll give one more very simple example that clearly illustrates the problem.
I have a library that uses JFX CodeArea. Naturally, all styles are stored in a CSS file. Users of this library can customize
how the code is displayed by modifying the styles in the CSS file. Let’s take the search feature as an example. In the
CSS file, there is a class:
.search-match {
-fx-background-color: orange;
}
But the user wants to change not the background color, but the foreground color and font weight. So they write:
.search-match {
-fx-fill: orange;
-fx-font-weight: bold;
}
And this should work. If it doesn’t, then it’s no longer CSS-based styling.
If, for some reason, the -fx-background-color property cannot be used, an alternative property can be introduced,
such as -fx-highlight-color. However, everything else in the example should work as described.
Best regards, Pavel
On 5/8/25 21:25, Andy Goryachev wrote:
Pavel:
I think your comments in the ticket are still invisible to me, so I can't comment.
About your recent comment in the PR - I have difficulty understanding what you mean. We are not adding methods to "style individual properties". We are adding methods that allow the application to use CSS to style parts of the visual representation of the given RichParagraph.
Perhaps if you describe what kind of visual representation you have in mind, we can show how to achieve that in the code.
-andy
From: openjfx-dev <openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org><mailto:openjfx-dev-retn at openjdk.org> on behalf of PavelTurk <pavelturk2000 at gmail.com><mailto:pavelturk2000 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 11:04
To: openjfx-dev at openjdk.org<mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.org> <openjfx-dev at openjdk.org><mailto:openjfx-dev at openjdk.org>
Subject: Re: RFR: 8355774: RichTextArea: provide mechanism for CSS styling of highlights
I am not a member of the JavaFX team, but if I may, I’d like to express my opinion. I believe that creating separate
methods for styling individual properties is a very problematic and dangerous decision.
First, the usefulness of such methods is minimal because when styling is done via CSS, the assumption is that
adjusting the CSS file should be sufficient—something that won’t work in this case. For example one user for search
result wants to set background color for matches but another one wants to set foreground color + weight.
Second, it violates fundamental CSS principles. Third, if these methods are added to the API, they cannot later
be removed without breaking backward compatibility.
I wrote about this in detail in the additional information for JDK-8356436, but my comment has not yet been approved
by a moderator.
When in doubt, it’s very helpful to see how others are doing it. In RichTextFX, special CSS properties were introduced,
which resulted in a consistent standard for applying CSS styles to all properties—fully aligned with established CSS norms.
This is my personal opinion, which, of course, can be wrong.
Best regards, Pavel
On 5/8/25 20:46, Andy Goryachev wrote:
> Adding missing APIs related to styling the highlights with CSS:
>
> 
>
>
>
> Adds methods to the `RichParagraph.Builder`:
>
>
> /**
> * Adds a wavy underline (typically used as a spell checker indicator) with the specified style name(s).
> * <p>
> * The corresponding styles should define CSS properties applicable to {@link javafx.scene.shape.Path}.
> *
> * @param start the start offset
> * @param length the end offset
> * @param css the style name(s)
> * @return this {@code Builder} instance
> * @since 25
> */
> public Builder addWavyUnderline(int start, int length, String ... css) {
>
>
>
> /**
> * Adds a highlight with the specified style name(s).
> * Use translucent colors to enable multiple highlights in the same region of text.
> * <p>
> * The corresponding styles should define CSS properties applicable to {@link javafx.scene.shape.Path}.
> *
> * @param start the start offset
> * @param length the end offset
> * @param css the style name(s)
> * @return this {@code Builder} instance
> * @since 25
> */
> public Builder addHighlight(int start, int length, String ... css) {
>
>
>
> Also adding similar methods to the `SimpleViewOnlyStyledModel` class:
>
>
> /**
> * Adds a highlight of the given color to the specified range within the last paragraph,
> * with the specified style name(s).
> *
> * @param start the start offset
> * @param length the length of the highlight
> * @param css the highlight style name(s)
> * @return this model instance
> * @since 25
> */
> public SimpleViewOnlyStyledModel highlight(int start, int length, String ... css) {
>
>
> /**
> * Adds a wavy underline (typically used as a spell checker indicator)
> * to the specified range within the last paragraph, with the specified style name(s).
> *
> * @param start the start offset
> * @param length the length of the highlight
> * @param css the highlight style name(s)
> * @return this model instance
> * @since 25
> */
> public SimpleViewOnlyStyledModel addWavyUnderline(int start, int length, String ... css) {
>
> -------------
>
> Commit messages:
> - tab
> - css
>
> Changes: https://git.openjdk.org/jfx/pull/1802/files
> Webrev: https://webrevs.openjdk.org/?repo=jfx&pr=1802&range=00
> Issue: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8355774
> Stats: 128 lines in 4 files changed: 110 ins; 8 del; 10 mod
> Patch: https://git.openjdk.org/jfx/pull/1802.diff
> Fetch: git fetch https://git.openjdk.org/jfx.git pull/1802/head:pull/1802
>
> PR: https://git.openjdk.org/jfx/pull/1802
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