[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 7 ■ The Foundation of Game Play Loop: The JavaFX Pulse System and the Game Processing Architecture
Next, let’s study the threads analysis pane by scrolling down in the Profiler tab, shown at the top left of Figure 7-11.
Find the Threads iconNetBeans will ask you if you want to start the threads analysis tool; once you agree, it will open
the Threads tab (see Figure 7-12).
Figure 7-12. Click the Threads icon, seen at the left of the screen, and open the Threads tab; the same eleven threads
are running
In case you are wondering why you are not seeing any “blips” in the Thread objects shown in Figure 7-12, like you
did when you clicked the Button objects in the previous chapter, you are correct in your assumption that you should
see the JavaFX pulse engine timing events somewhere in this diagram Yet, all the thread bars are solid colored, so no
action or pulse events are firing. I am going to have you use the NetBeans profiling utility as often as necessary to get
you used to it, as many developers avoid this tool because they have not become comfortable with it.
This reason you do not see any events is that simply creating the GamePlayLoop object is not enough for the
.handle() method inside it to grab hold of pulse events. Because it is a Timer object of sorts (an AnimationTimer, to be
exact), like any timer, it needs to be started and stopped. Let’s create these methods for the GamePlayLoop next.
Controlling Your GamePlayLoop: .start( ) and .stop( )
Because the AnimationTimer superclass has the .start() and .stop() methods, which control when the class (object)
will (using a .start() method call) and will not (using a .stop() method call) handle pulse events, you will simply pass
these functions “up” to the AnimationTimer superclass, using the Java super keyword inside your method code. You
will override the .start() method by using the Java @Override keyword and then pass the method call functionality up
to the AnimationTimer superclass by using the following method programming structure:
@Override
public void start() {
super.start();
}
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