Ok, I see my question is not quite clear: I'm not looking for how to print, I
am trying to figure out how to properly implement printing on a custom control,
more specifically JFxtras' Agenda. Agenda has the same problem as the more
recognizable usecase of a spreadsheet: it uses a scrollpane in its skin, so
when taking a screenshot this scrollpane limits what is captured, but when
printing -like a spreadsheet- I need all the data.
So first I was trying to grasp how printing in JavaFX works conceptually, but
from what I'm decuding so far this is very limited and basically no more that
screen capturing. Correct?
Tom
On 29-1-2015 05:53, Phil Race wrote:
That example is not great as it picked the one node type that knows how to do
something special with printing and completely overlooks it.
The print(Node) method it provides can print any node type but it is scaling
it to fit on a single side of paper. That's not ideal for a huge
spreadsheet/table
as you won't be able to read the output without a microscope.
I was pointing to the method on webengine that you mention last below
as the one you should use and the example does not use that anywhere.
To get proper pagination you need to explicitly call the
WebEngine.print(PrinterJob) method
-phil.
On 1/27/15 10:22 PM, Tom Eugelink wrote:
Ok, so looking at some examples like
http://java.dzone.com/articles/introduction-example-javafx-8
where PrintJob is let lose on a node, JavaFX's PrintJob will either use the
screen rendering or -if present- call: public void print(PrinterJob job)
Correct?
Tom
On 28-1-2015 02:43, Phil Race wrote:
On 1/27/15 4:08 PM, Tom Eugelink wrote:
Do I need to do something special to support printing of custom controls? The use case is that on screen a spreadsheet can be shown in a scrollpane, but when printing the whole spreadsheet should be printed.
Being a 'custom' control doesn't really make a difference here.
The same would apply if you wanted to print one of the built-in controls
that is in a scroll pane or otherwise not likely to fit on a page.
Spreadsheets, like TableView, TextArea and the like will need
to have their data laid out for the printer by the application.
In practice this means starting with the data contained in
the spreadsheet and iterating over it printing as much as fits
on each page in what ever way you want.
I am sure that something that can handle this this would
make a nice add-on to to the core API but it was not something
that was considered appropriate to be part of FX core.
We expected reporting packages to pop up from 3rd parties
The exception to this is HtmlEditor / WebEngine where you
cannot reasonably expect the application or such a package
to know how to properly print the data (HTML and other web content)
Hence that has a method to print its content to a PrinterJob
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/web/WebEngine.html#print-javafx.print.PrinterJob-
So one possibility for you is to throw your data into HTML table syntax, load
it into a web node and print that.
-phil.
