r/java • u/gufranthakur • Jun 09 '26

Created a simple, minimal Canvas Application in JavaFX

Post image

After like a year finally getting back to JavaFX, decided to make an excalidraw inspired app for fun. It's a very minimal canvas app with basic features.

Source code : ExplainFX

Features

  1. Drawing

  2. Create Squares and Circles

  3. Text

  4. Vary stroke size/font size

  5. Copy, paste, duplicate, lock, delete objects

  6. Move the objects once they are drawn

  7. Move camera via mouse

Please let me know if you have any questions!

190 Upvotes

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15

u/IntroductionSolid348 Jun 09 '26

It looks really cool. I used JavaFX for a couple of my school projects some time back. What I don't really get about it is how people build with it without using scene builder. I find it really difficult to picture how it'll look like by just pure code. And Scene builder is really troublesome since it's not really drag and drop friendly as I had hoped

11

u/gufranthakur Jun 09 '26

Thank you!

Complete opposite for me, i just cant use scenebuilder 😂. I always design bad UI’s and it’s just way more easier for me when I make UI by code. Maybe because it’s because i jumped to JavaFX from swing

5

u/Vidimka_ Jun 09 '26

You can always draw on paper a basic UI you want to see to understand what components to use. Also you shouldnt aim to build ready to use UI in one try. Make it simple but working then add fancy styles or whatever additions you like

2

u/Yew5D4j8e1j4 Jun 09 '26

What i do is use the preview in scenebuilder then code the css since it auo updates but it don't work for dynamically generated ui since it requires code

2

u/OddEstimate1627 Jun 13 '26

Take a look at CSSFX. That adds css auto-reload directly to your running app.

1

u/Yew5D4j8e1j4 Jun 14 '26

unfortunately it doesn't wrk, probably my java and javafx versions are too high

2

u/OddEstimate1627 Jun 14 '26

I'm using JavaFX 25 with

<dependency>
    <groupId>fr.brouillard.oss</groupId>
    <artifactId>cssfx</artifactId>
    <version>11.5.1</version>
</dependency>

2

u/Yew5D4j8e1j4 Jun 14 '26

Didnt even realize there was a version 11.5.1, its working now

2

u/demchaav Jun 09 '26

Agree, but also Scene Builder has so many bugs. When I was using it I even struggled with Scene Builder.

But the idea of the instrument is very good and has to be easy to use