Simple layout question, shrinking TextField and TextArea inside VBox

Question

Given:
        VBox root = new VBox(10);
        root.getChildren().addAll(new TextField(), new TextArea());
        Scene scene = new Scene(root, 300, 250);When I shrink the application window vertically, the textfield starts to shrink first, while the text area stays its size, then when the textfield is only a narrow strip, the text area starts to shrink.
1) Is this expected?
2) Is it by design? If so, why?
3) How can I avoid it, i.e. have the text area shrink first, then the textfield?
It think the behaviour in 3) makes more sense, since a text area by its nature can have different heights; a text field on the other hand I would expect to have the height of a single line of text unless there is absolutely no space for it in its container. It doesn't make sense to have a textfield that is a fraction of the height of a line of text.
I have tried various combinations of minHeight and prefHeight, but without luck.

Answer 1

Hey,
1) Yes, this is expected!
2) Yes, why.. well I don't know why the minimum height of a TextField is smaller than the pref size.
3) This can be avoid by setting your own sizes (min size - pref size - max size)
        VBox root = new VBox(10);
        root.setStyle("-fx-background-color: lightgray");
        TextField tf = new TextField();
        tf.setMinHeight(Control.USE_PREF_SIZE); //the minimum height = the preferred height
        TextArea ta = new TextArea();
        ta.setMinHeight(30);
        ta.setPrefHeight(50);
        ta.setMaxHeight(Double.MAX_VALUE); //maximum height, depends on the parent
        VBox.setVgrow(ta, Priority.ALWAYS); //use the maximum height available
        root.getChildren().addAll(tf, ta);
        Scene scene = new Scene(root, 300, 250);Edited by: FXdude on 21-jan-2013 6:13