title: Parent node not accessible during Controller object's initialize() method but ok when accessed later on
body: <p>I am currently quite puzzled by the behaviour of JavaFX with regards to nested FXMLs and associated Controllers and would greatly appreciate your help on this one;</p>
  <p><strong>This is how the code is structured:</strong></p>
  <ol>
  <li>Stage</li>
  <li>--&gt; Scene loaded from &quot;Main&quot; FXML with BorderPane as root Node and AnchorPane as 'center' Node</li>
  <li>----&gt; in center-AnchorPane, &lt;fx:include&gt; of nested &quot;Login&quot; FXML file (with VBox as top-Node and including a &quot;Login&quot; button)</li>
  <li>------&gt; Login controller, injected with top-Node of Login FXML file (a VBox in the Login FXML)</li>
  </ol>
  <p><strong>Then in the controller, here is what happens from my understanding:</strong></p>
  <ul>
  <li>Construction (nothing there)</li>
  <li>FXML injection</li>
  <li>initialize()</li>
  <li><strong>NOTHING?</strong></li>
  <li>event-driven method on login button-click</li>
  </ul>
  <p><strong>What I am trying to do:</strong></p>
  <p>Accessing the Login FXML's top-Node's Parent from the Login's FXML Controller via: injected_topNode_Login_VBox.getParent().blahblahblah</p>
  <p><strong>What doesn't work:</strong></p>
  <ul>
  <li><em>During the Login FXML nested controller's initialize() method</em>, executing the above statement returns 'null'.</li>
  <li><em>During the Login FXML nested controller's initialize() method</em>, accessing the same Parent node, but from the top-down (I have a Scene-Handling class from which I can fetch the VBox's Parent node). The interesting part here is that at that time - even though it is accessed in a static way via SceneHandlerClassName.getRootNode() where getRootNode() is a static method - the Root Node element (of the outter FXML) is also returned as being 'null'..</li>
  </ul>
  <p><strong>What works:</strong></p>
  <ul>
  <li><em>During the Login FXML nested controller's event-driven method loginButtonClick()</em>, executing the exact same statement returns the AnchorPane from the Main FXML scene, as expected.</li>
  </ul>
  <p><strong>In short:</strong></p>
  <ul>
  <li>Construction</li>
  <li>FXML injection</li>
  <li>initialize()        --&gt; Parent of Login VBox <strong>not reachable</strong> through VBox.getParent()</li>
  <li><strong>NOTHING?</strong></li>
  <li>event-driven method --&gt; Parent of Login VBox <strong>reachable</strong> through VBox.getParent()</li>
  </ul>
  <p>From my understanding, all properties should already  be available at the initialize() method's runtime execution, and I don't see why getParent() would return null then...
  Has someone got an answer for me, please?</p>
  <p>Any help would be greatly appreciated! :) :)
  Cheers,</p>
  <p>Peter</p>
  <p><strong>PS:</strong> I did not enclose the original code as it is quite simple in nature really, and I think my problem is most probably about my conception of how JavaFX's initialize() method is working.</p>
  <p><strong>Edit1:</strong> Ok, I have a new finding after @Slaw 's comment:
  I have tried, still in the initialize() method of the child FXML's controller, to access the parent of the top-level node in a different way (now documented in &quot;What doesn't work&quot;).</p>