JavaFX Slideshow

Just to play with JavaFX and to put it through it's paces I wrote a simple slide-show thing.

For a change of pace, i'll just paste the whole source code here.

Update: I noticed stack overflow was linking here, ... and that the code was broken because it was broken and also the final release of Java8 stopped ignoring null pointers in animations so it was broken again. I've fixed the code. Note that it still has the source location hard-coded to my home directory so that needs editing (ScannerLoader).

package au.notzed.slidez;

// this code is public domain

// This is not meant to be wonderful exemplary code, it was just
// my first experiment with JavaFX animations.

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.FileVisitResult;
import java.nio.file.FileVisitor;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.nio.file.attribute.BasicFileAttributes;
import java.util.concurrent.ArrayBlockingQueue;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import javafx.animation.FadeTransition;
import javafx.animation.Interpolator;
import javafx.animation.ParallelTransition;
import javafx.animation.PauseTransition;
import javafx.animation.ScaleTransition;
import javafx.animation.SequentialTransition;
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.collections.ObservableList;
import javafx.event.ActionEvent;
import javafx.event.EventHandler;
import javafx.scene.Node;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.image.Image;
import javafx.scene.image.ImageView;
import javafx.scene.layout.StackPane;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import javafx.util.Duration;

/**
 * Simple slide show with transition effects.
 */
public class SlideZ extends Application {

    StackPane root;
    ImageView current;
    ImageView next;
    int width = 720;
    int height = 580;

    @Override
    public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
        root = new StackPane();

        root.setStyle("-fx-background-color: #000000;");

        Scene scene = new Scene(root, width, height);

        primaryStage.setTitle("Photos");
        primaryStage.setScene(scene);
        primaryStage.show();

        // Start worker thread, and kick off first fade in.
        loader = new ScannerLoader();
        loader.start();
        Image image = getNextImage();

        if (image != null)
            startImage(image);
    }
    ScannerLoader loader;

    public void startImage(Image image) {
        ObservableList<Node> c = root.getChildren();

        if (current != null)
            c.remove(current);

        current = next;
        next = null;

        // Create fade-in for new image.
        next = new ImageView(image);

        next.setFitHeight(height);
        next.setFitHeight(width);
        next.setPreserveRatio(true);
        next.setOpacity(0);

        c.add(next);

        FadeTransition fadein = new FadeTransition(Duration.seconds(1), next);

        fadein.setFromValue(0);
        fadein.setToValue(1);

        PauseTransition delay = new PauseTransition(Duration.seconds(1));
        SequentialTransition st;
        if (current != null) {
            ScaleTransition dropout;

            dropout = new ScaleTransition(Duration.seconds(1), current);
            dropout.setInterpolator(Interpolator.EASE_OUT);
            dropout.setFromX(1);
            dropout.setFromY(1);
            dropout.setToX(0.75);
            dropout.setToY(0.75);
            st = new SequentialTransition(
                new ParallelTransition(fadein, dropout), delay);
        } else {
            st = new SequentialTransition(
                fadein, delay);
        }

        st.setOnFinished(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
            @Override
            public void handle(ActionEvent t) {
                Image image = getNextImage();

                if (image != null)
                    startImage(image);
            }
        });

        st.playFromStart();
    }

    @Override
    public void stop() throws Exception {
        loader.interrupt();
        loader.join();
        super.stop();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }
    BlockingQueue<Image> images = new ArrayBlockingQueue(5);

    Image getNextImage() {
        if (loader.complete) {
            return images.poll();
        }
        try {
            return images.take();
        } catch (InterruptedException ex) {
            Logger.getLogger(SlideZ.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
        }
        return null;
    }

    /**
     * Scans directories and loads images one at a time.
     */
    class ScannerLoader extends Thread implements FileVisitor<Path> {

        // Directory to start scanning for pics
        String root = "/home/notzed/Pictures";
        boolean complete;

        @Override
        public void run() {
            System.out.println("scanning");
            try {
                Files.walkFileTree(Paths.get(root), this);
                System.out.println("complete");
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(SlideZ.class.getName())
                    .log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            } finally {
                complete = true;
            }
        }

        @Override
        public FileVisitResult preVisitDirectory(Path t, BasicFileAttributes bfa)
            throws IOException {
            return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
        }

        @Override
        public FileVisitResult visitFile(Path t, BasicFileAttributes bfa)
            throws IOException {
            try {
                Image image = new Image(t.toUri().toString(),
                    width, height, true, true, false);

                if (!image.isError()) {
                    images.put(image);
                }
            } catch (InterruptedException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(SlideZ.class.getName())
                    .log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
                return FileVisitResult.TERMINATE;
            }
            return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
        }

        @Override
        public FileVisitResult visitFileFailed(Path t, IOException ioe)
            throws IOException {
            return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
        }

        @Override
        public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory(Path t, IOException ioe)
            throws IOException {
            return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
        }
    }
}

The only 'tricky bit', if you could call it that, is the use of the Java 7 FileVistitor and a thread to load the files incrementally and asynchronously. Rather than try to make assumptions about the filename I just attempt to load every file I find and let the Image object tell me if it was valid or not.

But the JavaFX bit is pretty simple and straightforward, and i'm looking forward to playing with it further. It's given me a few ideas to try when I have some time and the weather isn't so nice as it is this weekend.

I'm not sure if the rendering pipeline is completely `GPU accelerated' yet on AMD hardware - the docs only mention that '3D' is only on NVidia so far.

If it isn't then the performance is ok enough - the CPU on this box is certainly capable of better mind you.

If it is, then it needs a bit more work. It can keep up ok with the simple fade and scale transitions i'm using at 580p, but adding a blur drops it right down, and trying to run it 1920x1200 results in a pretty slow frame-rate and lots of tearing.

Every JavaFX application also crashes with a hot-spot backtrace when they finish.

But the "main" problem with learning more JavaFX at this point for me is that it's going to make it more painful to maintain any Swing code I have, and it will make Android feel even more funky than it does already.

Update: So i've confirmed the GPU pipeline is not being used on my system. Bummer I guess, but at least the performance i'm getting is ok then.

If one sets -Dprism.verbose=true as a VM argument, it will print out which pipeline it uses.

Update 2: I found another option -Dprism.forceGPU=true which enables the the GPU pipeline on the AMD proprietary drivers I'm using. Oh, that is much better. Added a gaussian blur-in and ran it full-screen and it keeps up fine (and so it should!). There's a jira bug to enable it, so I presume it isn't too far off in the main release.

Update 3: I've done another one with a more sophisticated set of animated-tile transitions as JavaFC Slidershow 2.