[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 6 ■ The Foundation of Game Design: The JavaFX Scene Graph and the InvinciBagel Game Infrastructure
Scene Graph Nodes: .createSplashScreenNodes( )
The first thing you will want to do with your createSplashScreenNodes() method is code the empty method structure
and add the Node object creation code that already exists in the bootstrap code that was generated for you by
NetBeans in Chapter 2. This includes the Node objects for the Button node, the StackPane root node, and the Scene
object named scene. You will keep the primaryStage code in the .start() method because that object is created using
the .start(Stage primaryStage) constructor method call. The Button object has already been renamed gameButton
(it was btn), so you have three lines of object instantiation code and a line of configuration code, as follows:
root = new StackPane();
scene = new Scene(root, 640, 400);
gameButton = new Button();
gameButton.setText("PLAY GAME");
It is important to note that because the root StackPane object is used in the constructor method call for the scene
Scene object, this line of code needs to come first (your root object has to be created before it is used!). The next thing
you need to create is the HBox layout container object that will hold your four Button UI controls. You will also set the
alignment attribute for the HBox; add an Insets object to contain the padding values; and then add this padding to
the4 HBox object, using these four lines of Java code:
buttonContainer = new HBox(12);
buttonContainer.setAlignment(Pos.BOTTOM_LEFT);
buttonContainerPadding = new Insets(0, 0, 10, 16);
buttonContainer.setpadding(buttonContainerPadding);
Next, let’s take a handy programmers’ shortcut and copy and paste the two gameButton (instantiation and
configuration) lines of code below the HBox code (because the buttons are inside the HBox, this is just for visual
organization, not to make the code work) and then copy and paste them three more times, on separate lines. This will
allow you to change the game to help, score, and legal, respectively, by creating the following four button Java codes:
gameButton = new Button();
gameButton.setText("PLAY GAME");
helpButton = new Button();
helpButton.setText("INSTRUCTIONS");
scoreButton = new Button();
scoreButton.setText("HIGH SCORES");
legalButton = new Button();
legalButton.setText("LEGAL & CREDITS");
Now that you have created the HBox Button UI control layout container and buttons, you still need to write one
more line of code to fill the HBox with Button objects, using the .getChildren().addAll() method chain, like this:
buttonContainer.getChildren().addAll(gameButton, helpButton, scoreButton, legalButton);
Next, let’s add your image-compositing Node objects (Image and ImageView) so that you can add the artwork for
your InvinciBagel splash screen as well as the panel overlays that will decorate your instructions, legal disclaimers and
production credits and a background and screen title for your (eventual) game high scores table. I use two ImageView
objects to contain these two layers; let’s set up the bottommost backplate image layer first by using the following Java
code to instantiate the Image object and then the ImageView object and wire them together:
splashScreen = new Image("/invincibagelsplash.png", 640, 400, true, false, true);
splashScreenBackplate = new ImageView();
splashScreenBackplate.setImage(splashScreen); // this Java statement connects the two objects
136
www.it-ebooks.info