[WIP] Add External Application Selection to Preferences

[slyr91]

WIP - Add External Application Selection to Preferences

This pull request is in regards to #674.
This initial commit adds a button to the settings panel for each external application which allows the user to select an application to make default. There is currently a problem with this build where the application will not update the pushToApplicationButton. I believe the issue has something to do with the interaction between javafx and swing components. Also I plan on adding keybinding options as well in the future, it's just taking me a bit of time to familiarize myself with the program between life events. Let me know what you think so far and on the direction I am taking.

[tobiasdiez]

This looks like a good start. Nice work!

The button is not updated because such an update mechanism is not yet implemented. The icon is generated from an action (which itself is created in PushToApplicationButton.getMenuAction). However, the Action class only has static return values. I would propose to follow the example of controlsfx Action and replace the getters in the action interface by javafx properties. Then you can use bindings in the adapter class JabRefAction and in this way update the UI if the underlying property is changed.

@slyr91 do you want to implement these changes or prefer if somebody from the team does it? (I would volunteer but it may take some time).

[slyr91]

I will definitely give this a solid try. @tobiasdiez I am still learning about the proper procedures on GitHub but if I can implement those changes should I add them to this pull request or to a separate one?

[tobiasdiez]

Good question. In general, it is better to create a few smaller PRs because that makes reviewing and understanding the code changes easier. Having said this, in this particular case, I think however that the changes are small and localized enough so that you can simply push them to this PR.

[stefan-kolb]

@slyr91 Will you work on this in the future?

[slyr91]

@stefan-kolb I definitely will give it a shot soon. I have just been too busy to dive into this. I had finals to deal with and now I am trying to study for a certification so all my free time goes to that. As soon as I am done with that I will be returning to this.

[slyr91]

I'm getting back into this now and I noticed that the branch this was originally built on, maintainable-beta, is closed. Which branch should I apply these changes and proposed improvements to?

[stefan-kolb]

Hi, on the master branch please 😄

[Siedlerchr]

You probably have to rework your code a bit as recently the preferences dialog was transformed to javaFX as well.

[tobiasdiez]

Surpassed by #5024.