[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 6 ■ The Foundation of Game Design: The JavaFX Scene Graph and the InvinciBagel Game Infrastructure
Adding Nodes to the Scene Graph: .addStackPaneNodes()
Finally, you have to create a method that will add the Node objects that you have created to the Scene Graph root,
which, in this case, is a StackPane object. You will use the .getChildren().add() method chain to add the children Node
objects to the parent StackPane root Scene Graph node. This is done via three simple lines of Java code, like this:
root.getChildren().add(splashScreenBackplate);
root.getChildren().add(splashScreenTextArea);
root.getChildren().add(buttonContainer);
As you can see in Figure 6-8, the Java code is error free, and the root object sees its declaration at the top of the
class. Clicking the root object in the code creates this highlighting, which traces the use of the object through the code.
This is a pretty cool NetBeans 8.0 trick that you should use whenever you want to track an object in code.
Figure 6-8. Coding the addNodesToStackPane() method, using the .getChildren() method chained to the .add()
method
The important thing to note here is the order in which the Node objects were added to the StackPane root
Scene Graph object. This affects the compositing layer order for the image compositing, as well as for the UI element
compositing, on top of these digital image elements. The first node added to the StackPane will be on the bottom of
the layer stack; this needs to be the splashScreenBackplate ImageView Node object, as you can see in the figure.
The next node to add will be the splashScreenTextArea ImageView Node object, as the transparent images with
the panel overlays need to go right on top of Pat Harrington’s InvinciBagel splash screen 2D artwork. After this, you
can place the UI design, which, in this case can be done in one fell swoop, using the buttonContainer HBox Node
object, which contains all the Button objects. Note that you do not have to add buttons to this StackPane root Scene
Graph object, because you have already used the .getChildren().addAll() method chain to add your Button UI
controls to the Scene Graph hierarchy below an HBox (Parent object) Node branch object. Now, you are ready to test!
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