Managing nodes in a scene

Question

yeah, good evening.
i finally i found some tim to jeffaeks ;) and i got started with some custome nodes from jim's blog. i appreciate his work, maybe i can contribute some code to the custom node section, too. i am from the deepaMehta project and we are using mainly swing and applets, that's why i got interested in jeffaeks. i hope to find some answers here, cause all the links, mixed up resources and old demos... puuh, these forums here seem to take care about the most active topics...
some small questions are:
a) if i have multiple nodes on my stage, am i able to stop mouse-event-propagation to the nodes/stage/canvas below my clicked node?
b) do you know a panel or a canvas in the packages which already provides mouse-listeners?
c) i want to mask a ImageView, perhaps with a circle but haven't tried yet.i read nile, can export this .. but i don't use nile. could it would work with svgpath or hand-coded, too?
my big question is:
d) how can i handle my "content: Nodes[]" at runtime? (adding/removing). should i slice my nodes into the content sequence of my stage? is this managed with the scenario-scenegraph internally? i am not into that yet, so any hints? i can't just hide them or make them invisible, cause i don't know which type of nodes my user want's to fade (instantiates) into his view.
hopefully my questions are understandable, since i often mixup german grammar and english vocabulary, especcially when it's late :) and here in berlin we have already the 4th...
maybe someone of you can tell me a bit more about those two topics, i would appreciate any hints and tips.
thanks in advance,
malte

Answer 1

I think you want to use the Node attribute 'clip'. This clips the boundary of the node (both visual and mouse event wise). The example below shows that mouse events are only sent if the mouse is inside the clip region of a sub node. If you uncomment the clip area on the Group, then it is the union of the Group's clip and the Circles's clip that are used.
package jfx_test;
import javafx.scene.*;
import javafx.input.*;
import javafx.scene.paint.*;
import javafx.application.*;
import javafx.scene.geometry.*;
var fillColor:Color = Color.BLACK;
var clipShape:Shape;
Frame {
  width: 200
  height: 200
  visible: true
  stage: Stage {
    content: [ Group {
//      clip: Rectangle {x: 80, y: 0, width: 40; height: 200 };
      content: [ Circle{ 
        centerX: 100
        centerY: 100
        clip:  bind clipShape;
        radius: 50
        fill: bind fillColor;
      Circle{ 
        centerX: 10
        centerY: 10
        radius: 10
        fill: bind fillColor;
      onMouseEntered: function(me:MouseEvent):Void {
        fillColor = Color.BLUE;
      onMouseExited: function(me:MouseEvent):Void {
        fillColor = Color.BLACK;
      onMouseClicked: function(me:MouseEvent):Void {
        if (clipShape == null) {
          clipShape = Rectangle {x: 50
            y: 80
            width: 100
            height: 40
        } else {
         clipShape = null;
}It is interesting to note that changing the clip shape doesn't send a mouse exited event even if the new shape moves the current mouse location outside of the chip area. You do get a mouse exited event as soon as you move the mouse though.