Java Desktop application for the News Manager project

for 'Programming of User Interfaces'

Requirements

• Java 8
• JavaFX
• Maven

Setup

Note: this is not required for the submitted version

1. Create a copy of config.properties.dist inside the resources folder, called config.properties. Inside, add the anonymous authentication key for the server.
2. Make sure to add the folder resources as a source/resource folder in the IDE.

• In Eclipse, open the project properties, go to "Java Build Path" and add it there as a source folder.
• In IntelliJ, mark the folder as a resource folder

3. Enable Maven support. In Eclipse, right-click on the project, select "Configure" and click "Convert to Maven project"

Implementation details

We have annotated our code with @author students so that also in given classes it is easy to find these changes

• Using a separate resources folder to store property files and images
• Using Maven to load dependencies, like JSON implementation and JFoenix Material Design
• There are two new packages application.services and application.components
• To separate config from the code, a separate config.properties was created which stores the API key
• Since we are using an accordion to show the list of news, the template for each accordion element is extracted into NewsAccordionItem
• Where applicable, we are using the JFoenix Material Design controls
• In application.css we are defining some default styles for elements

Services

• Added simple service registry with basic injection, using ServiceRegistry, ServiceRegistryAware in application.services
• The SceneManager in application.services manages the display of all scenes because we show most of them in the same window. It helps to abstract the process of showing scenes, but also saves the state of previous scenes, so we can easily go back. It checks if controllers are ServiceRegistryAware and injects the ServiceRegistry. Also, it supports ControllerEvents and fires onBeforeShow for these controllers.
• Controllers must implement the NewsController interface so that it works with the SceneManager

Shared header between main views

• Since we have the same header on the three main screens, the header is extracted into a separate component NewsHead in application.components. But since SceneBuilder doesn't play so well with it, they are only added from code, and not set in the FXML files
• For the same reason, a shared controller (NewsCommonController) and common model is added (NewsCommonModel)

Changes to given code

• In the Categories enum, we added a property to hold the image path for the image of each category
• To support a logout logic, the anonymous API key is saved as a member inside ConnectionManager
• We found that the publication date of articles from the server was missing, so we added support for it in JsonArticle
• In the ImagePickerController we changed the logic so that the image preview is directly shown when a new image is selected
• To support the SceneManager the code inside Main was adjusted as well
• Added a method in the LoginModel to facilitate the login process, returning a constructed User object