Scene.getStylesheets() takes a list of URLs, so instead of using a resource file on the classpath I can use "file:///somepath". This works as expected. Now I'd like to change that file on the filesystem and then re-apply it to the scene to view my changes without the need to restart my application.

I tried to execute:

scene.getStylesheets().clear();
scene.getStylesheets().add("file:///somepath/stylesheet.css");

after I've changed the file /somepath/stylesheet.css on the filesystem but there is no change to the applied styles at all.

According to

  https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=1385&threadID=2294345

this is possible using a private API:

  com.sun.javafx.css.StyleManager.getInstance().reloadStylesheets(scene);

but adding official support for this (or a similar mechanism maybe even automatically) would probably be better.