How to bind the text of a textarea in fxml to a custom property in the controller?

Question

I have a fxml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<?import javafx.scene.control.*?>
<?import javafx.scene.layout.*?>

<HBox maxHeight="-Infinity" maxWidth="-Infinity" minHeight="-Infinity" minWidth="-Infinity"
      prefHeight="400.0" prefWidth="600.0" xmlns="http://javafx.com/javafx/8" xmlns:fx="http://javafx.com/fxml/1"
      fx:controller="my.AppController">
    <children>
        <TextArea prefHeight="200.0" prefWidth="200.0" text="${ddd}"/>
    </children>
</HBox>

You can see I want to use ${ddd} to bind the text of textarea to a custom property from my.AppController.

The code of my.AppController:

public class AppController {

  @FXML
  public StringProperty ddd = new SimpleStringProperty("dddddddddd");
}

When I run this javafx application, it doesn't show anything in the textarea, seems it can't bind to the ddd from AppController.

What's the correct way to do it?

Answer 1

As of 02.2015 and Java 8, this seems to be not supported. You cant use expression binding to controller in FXML, I guess you have to do it in controller initialize code.

Actually I'm very dissapointed, this makes JavaFX FXML much much weaker technology compared to WPF XAML.

Answer 2

To make the TextArea text bind to a property, use fx:id. Assign a fx:id to the TextArea, use it in the controller and bind its textProperty() to any property you like. You can even directly declare the text (if you are looking for it).

<TextArea fx:id="textArea" prefHeight="200.0" prefWidth="200.0"/>

Controller

public class AppController {

  @FXML
  private TextArea textArea;

  ...

  public void initialize(URL location, Resources resources) {
       textArea.textProperty().bind(customProperty);
       //textArea.setText("dddddddddd");
  }

  ...

}