Goal: The goal of this assignment is to gain practical experience with implementing GUIs using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern and JavaFX.
Problem description: In this assignment you will develop a GUI to manipulate the CharacterDatabase, using the methods implemented in Assignment 2, that is, load(), save(), add(), remove(), and search(). This extends the work you have done in Assignments 1 and 2. Notice that you wont be using the Team class in this assignment.
You will be given the skeleton for this assignment, with the Model-View-Controller classes and the FXML file for the GUI, to be edited using Scene Builder. You must not add any extra classes to complete this assignment. This will be found on Blackboard under Assessment.
Notice that changes have been made in the Character class in order to store the picture of the characters. The Character class only stores the name of the picture (that is, the path to the picture on disk), the picture will be loaded and displayed by the GUI, along with the characters other attributes, when a character is selected or searched.
In order to meet the requirements, the GUI must be capable of performing the following tasks:
- Load a collection of Character objects from the database, (or create an empty database) using the CharacterDatabase, and display the list/set of characters on the GUI window. The user should be able to provide the file name containing the database using the GUI. Characters must be displayed in a ListView, and must be sorted by name after loading.
- TIP1: The easiest way to display a list of objects in a GUI is using the JavaFX ListView component.
- TIP2: Use the toString() method to display the character objects in the ListView.
- TIP3: You should take a look at the documentation of ListView in JavaFX, and also do some research about ObservableList in Java.
- Save the current collections of Character and SuperCharacter using the ChracterDatabase save() method.
- Saving should only occur when the save button is pressed.
- Add new characters (or super characters) to the database using the GUI. The user must be able to input the Character or SuperCharacter attributes using JavaFX components, such as TextField, and add the new character to the database using an action button. The user must be able to choose whether a Character or a SuperCharacter is to be add to the database.
- TIP: The characters picture can be add using the JavaFX FileChooser component. Notice that it is not mandatory to select a picture for the character, however, a default blank picture must be provided otherwise.
- Remove a character from the database using the GUI. The user must be able to remove a character either by providing the characters name to be removed, or by selecting the character in the ListView.
- TIP: Even though the ListView component supports multiple row selections, for the sake of simplicity, the GUI must allow selection and removal of only one character from the ListView at a time (this is already the default configuration in the ListView control).
- Search a character by name, and display all information of the character along with its picture in the main GUI window. Information about characters must also be displayed automatically in the main GUI window every time a character is selected in the ListView.
- Exceptions/Error Handling: An appropriate error message should be clearly displayed (using an Alert Dialog) if any error occurs when using the GUI, for instance, if there is an error reading from the file, or there is any other error processing the database. The error message displayed to the user should clearly identify the reason for the error. It should include the detail message of the exception thrown to help the user track down the exact reason for the problem.
- TIP: You should catch any exception thrown by the application in the Controller, and display the exception message from the exception.getMessage()method into a dialog box.
A directory of images (src/images/) has been provided for you to use in your testing, as well as an example database file (src/database1.dat). Note that the provided database file only contains two entries, so you may wish to do further testing by creating your own database files.
View Layout
Your main GUI window should look like the following: see image.
User Interface Elements
The user interface elements used in the above are as follows:
- Button for all of the buttons
- Label for all of the textual labels (of all sizes - text size is larger)
- TextField for the 5 single line input fields
- ImageView for the view of the character (the blue square)
- ListView for the (currently empty) list of characters on the left
Note that when importing them in your Controller to import them from javafx.scene.control, NOT from java.awt.
