JavaFX in Action

Chapter 5. Behind the scene graph

This chapter covers

• Defining a scene graph
• Animating stuff on screen, with ease
• Transforming graphics and playing with color
• Responding to mouse events

In chapter 4 we looked at building a rather traditional UI with Swing. Although Swing is an important Java toolkit for interface development, it isn’t central to JavaFX’s way of working with graphics. JavaFX comes at graphics programming from a very different angle, with a focus more on free-form animation, movement, and effects, contrasting to Swing’s rather rigid widget controls. In this chapter we’ll be taking our first look at how JFX does things, constructing a solid foundation onto which we can build in future chapters with evermore sophisticated and ...