Creating PDFs in a custom javafx application

Question

I'm working on a Javafx project and have successfully converted it to a .dmg file using IntelliJ. On feature is that when a button is pressed, a PDF should be created and saved in the dowloads folder. This works perfectly when running the program in IntelliJ, but doesn't work in the application version of the program(one you get after opening the .dmg file). I am using Apache PDFBox to create the PDFs.

This is the method use to save the PDF, document has been initialized and isn't empty:

public void savePDF(String title) throws IOException{
   String home = System.getProperty("user.home");
   document.save(home+"/Downloads/"+title+".pdf");
   System.out.println("PDF created");
}

I have tried changing the output folder in which the PDF file is created but it didn't change anything.

Answer 1

You should consider a more clear way of getting an output file. I have no experience with Apache PDFBox itself, but there's basic ancillary code you should consider adding to improve your app.

Rough example:

/// Other code here

// FileChooser needs a stage
// you need to set this somewhere,
// probably with a simple setter after instantiating your controller
private Stage stage;

private File getHomePath() {
    String homePath = System.getProperty("user.home");
    return new File(homePath);
}
private File getOutputFile(String suggestedName) {

    FileChooser fileChooser = new FileChooser();
    fileChooser.setInitialDirectory(getHomePath());
    fileChooser.setInitialFileName(suggestedName);
    fileChooser.setSelectedExtensionFilter(new FileChooser.ExtensionFilter("PDF files (*.pdf)", "*.pdf"));

    return fileChooser.showSaveDialog(stage);
}


public void  exportPdf(){

    File outputFile = getOutputFile("some.pdf");
    if (null == outputFile) {
        // optional: show dialog with a warning
        // about no output file selected
        return;
    }

    Thread exportThread = new Thread(() -> {

        try (FileOutputStream fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(outputFile)) {

             // The actual save() is here
             document.save(fileOutputStream);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // This could be replaced with a warning dialog
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }

        Platform.runLater(() -> Notifications.create()
            .title("Finished")
            .text("PDF saved")
            .position(Pos.TOP_CENTER)
            .showInformation());
    });

    exportThread.start();
}

/// ...
/// more code

The Notifications class comes from the ControlsFX library. Feel free to replace with a plain dialog.