Effect: Animated Image Sequences - JavaFX Special Effects - page 143

application is initializing. At the beginning of the function main , three variables called seq1 , seq2 , and
seq3 are created. Each of these three variables holds an ImageSequence created by a call to
MediaLoader.imageSequence .
MediaLoader is a class that is used to manage different types of media in an application. The function
imageSequence takes a path, a count, and a flag specifying if the function should return before all of the
images are loaded. Passing true to the function imageSequence tells the MediaLoader to not wait for all of
the images to load. Having the first calls to imageSequence return immediately allows us to set up the
scene without waiting for a background thread to load all of the images. This improves the user
experience, as the window pops up much sooner.
Since the three ImageSequences are not fully loaded when the application starts, we want to let the
user know that the application is loading and give her some sense of progress. The Timeline named
checkProgress is used to check if the ImageSequences are fully loaded by checking the progress of each
ImageSequence every .7 seconds. If they are not loaded, the Label progressText is updated to let the user
know the current progress. If all of the ImageSequences are loaded, then the three buttons are enabled.
The Timeline checkProgress knows that the ImageSequences are loaded if the sum of their progress is 300
percent—that's 100 percent per sequence.
Once the buttons are enabled, they can be pressed. Pressing each button sets a different
ImageSequenceView to be displayed in the scene. For example, in Listing 7-1 the function asteroid creates
a new ImageSequenceView and makes sure the Timeline anim is started. You should note that each of these
functions creates a new ImageSequenceView , but its imageSequence attribute is set by a call to MediaLoader .
This is done to illustrate a helpful pattern. Since we know MediaLoader will only load a particular
ImageSequence once, and if we rely on MediaLoader to always get an ImageSequence , then we know for sure
that our application is only loading each ImageSequence once. Granted, in such a simple application this
is not really required, but in more complex applications it is very useful.
Before we explore how the ImageSequence and ImageSequenceView classes are implemented, let's
explore in more detail the class MediaLoader .
Listing 7-2. MediaLoader
def instance:MediaLoader = MediaLoader{};
public function image(classpath:String, background:Boolean):Image{
instance.getImage(classpath, background);
}
public function imageSequence(classpathBase:String,imageCount:Integer,
background:Boolean):ImageSequence{
return instance.getImageSequence(classpathBase, imageCount, background);
}
public class MediaLoader {
var imageMap:Map = new HashMap();
var sequenceMap:Map = new HashMap();
public function getImage(classpath:String, background:Boolean):Image{
var image:Image = imageMap.get(classpath) as Image;
if (image == null){
image = Image{
url: this.getClass().getResource(classpath).toString();
smooth: true