Desktop

org.blockchainbench.desktop is the JavaFX front end. It lets a user load configurations, set the shared evaluation parameters, start a run, watch its progress, and inspect the results. It is packaged as an Eclipse application: the bundle contributes an application through plugin.xml, and that application boots JavaFX.

Startup

The startup chain crosses three layers before any window appears.

sequenceDiagram
  autonumber
  participant PDE as Eclipse application
  participant L as Launcher
  participant App as BlockchainApp
  participant SM as SceneManager
  PDE->>L: start() via plugin.xml
  L->>App: BlockchainApp.main()
  App->>App: Application.launch()
  App->>SM: init(stage)
  App->>SM: showConfig()

Launcher implements the Equinox IApplication contract and simply calls BlockchainApp.main. BlockchainApp is the JavaFX Application; its start hands the primary stage to SceneManager and opens the first screen. The configuration screen is the current entry point; the older main-menu screen is still present but commented out.

Scene navigation

SceneManager is a small static navigator. It keeps the primary Stage and exposes one method per screen: showMainMenu, showConfig, showSimulation, showResults, and showError. For the screens that need a constructed controller — the running-simulation view and the results view — it uses an FXMLLoader controller factory so it can pass the simulationId and the IBlockchainBench handle into the controller’s init(...) after loading.

flowchart LR
  Config["config.fxml<br/>ConfigController"] --> Sim
  MainMenu["mainMenu.fxml<br/>MainMenuController"] --> Sim
  Sim["simulation.fxml<br/>SimulationController"] --> Results["result.fxml<br/>ResultsController"]
  Sim -. cancel .-> MainMenu
  Error["error_dialog.fxml<br/>ErrorDialogController"]

The error dialog is an overlay shown on demand from any screen via ErrorDialogController, not a node in the main flow.

Controllers and views

Each screen is an FXML view bound to a controller. There are two ways into a run — the configuration screen and the older main-menu screen — that converge on the same running-simulation view.

View	Controller	Purpose
config.fxml	ConfigController	Edit the shared BaseConfig (spinners, validation) and the per-run SimulationConfig table; start a run. Current entry screen.
mainMenu.fxml	MainMenuController	Browse a CSV and a JSON, preview the configurations in a table, choose a mode, and start a run.
simulation_config_dialog.fxml	SimulationConfigDialogController	Add or edit a single SimulationConfig row.
simulation.fxml	SimulationController	Show live progress of a running group and route to the results view on completion.
result.fxml	ResultsController	Present the collected results of a finished group.
error_dialog.fxml	ErrorDialogController	Reusable error and message dialog.

RunningController and LogViewerController exist in the controller package as well. LogViewerController wraps a log text area but is not currently wired into any loaded view.

Talking to the engine

The desktop programs against IBlockchainBench. A run is started by collecting the selected SimulationConfig list and the BaseConfig, then calling bench.submit(...) and navigating to the running-simulation view with the returned id.

SimulationController then observes progress by polling. Its init(id, bench) starts a one-second JavaFX Timeline; each tick reads bench.getSimulation(id), updates the progress bar and status labels from the run counts, and — once the group reaches FINISHED or ERROR — stops the timer and navigates to the results view. Because the poll runs on the JavaFX application thread, no cross-thread marshalling is needed for these reads.

sequenceDiagram
  autonumber
  participant C as ConfigController / MainMenuController
  participant B as IBlockchainBench
  participant S as SimulationController
  C->>B: submit(configs, baseConfig, mode)
  B-->>C: simulationId
  C->>S: SceneManager.showSimulation(id, bench)
  loop every second
    S->>B: getSimulation(id)
    B-->>S: SimulationInfo (status, run counts)
  end
  S->>S: on FINISHED or ERROR, show results

Supporting pieces

SimulationService is a singleton that holds the currently selected list of SimulationConfig between screens.

The ui package provides small reusable helpers used mainly by the configuration screen: SpinnerFactory (typed integer and double spinners), TooltipFactory (labelled tooltips), UIFieldRegistry (binding UI fields to model fields), and Validation (input validation). FieldMetadata describes a configuration field for those helpers.

SimulationRunner and the desktop’s own SimulationApplication are headless paths that submit a default run without any UI; they are convenience and test entry points rather than part of the interactive flow. The interactive application always starts through Launcher and BlockchainApp.