FXRibbon version 1.2 released

This time, something different. An update to FXRibbon, Microsoft like ribbon control for Java (JavaFX).

After a issue request to make FXRibbon better prepared to be updated to Java 9, and beyond, I took the opportunity to also add some features, make some aesthetic adjustments, fix some withstanding bugs, further clean up the project, and overall polish it.

The end result is version 1.2 which I’ll go into detail in this blog post.

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Update to FXRibbon (Ribbon for Java)

I’ve updated the Ribbon control and its documentation.

Here’s some of the relevant code changes (you can check the git log history for more details):

  • Cleaned up API
  • Cleaned up code into standard conventional packages
  • Fixed and cleaned up test apps (that also serve as documentation examples)
  • Added gradle build and configuration
  • Other refactors

Here’s the new page for the FXRibbon documentation: here.

Future developments for this library:

  • Add button controls: current javafx buttons don’t provide the best API for the ribbon use case, there’s also an issue where if you have a button with a multi line label, the label won’t be vertically aligned with the rest of the buttons.
  • Add other specialized controls, e.g. Ribbon gallery
  • Fix other issues in the issue tracker.

Contextual Ribbon Tabs for the Ribbon

A small update to the Ribbon control: Contextual Ribbon Tabs.

Some controls should only appear when a particular object is selected because they only affect the configuration of that object. This is why Contextual Ribbon Tabs exist. They only appear when a particular object is selected and disappear when it looses its selection.

To differentiate themselves from regular Ribbon Tabs they appear with a different color, they can also be composed of more than one Tab. In the picture below the Contextual Ribbon Tab appears in blue.

contextualTab2

Gallery control for the Ribbon

This time an update to the ribbon control. I’ve done some tweaks to the UI as well as to the API and added a new control called a Gallery.

Below you can see an image of the updated Ribbon.

ribbon2

In the next picture you’ll see the new control which is called Gallery. Although you can use it by itself, I’ve never seen it being used outside the ribbon.

gallery

The up and down arrows allow you to navigate through the list of choices. The other button will open up a popup (picture below) which gives you a full view of the choices with each choice belonging to a category.

galleryPopup

All of this is CSS and FXML friendly meaning you can declare an instance of the ribbon using FXML and you can style the ribbon to your liking by overriding the existing CSS.