Make Field Instance Variable Protected In SimpleControl

[wemgl]

I'm attempting to create a new SimpleControl subclass called SimpleHtmlEditorControl for my project and I cannot access the private field instance variable in SimpleControl in my subclass because it is private. This is the code that I wrote:

public class SimpleHtmlEditorControl extends SimpleControl<StringField> {

    private StackPane stackPane;

    private Label fieldLabel;
    private Label readOnlyLabel;
    private HTMLEditor htmlEditor;

    @Override
    public void initializeParts() {
        super.initializeParts();

        stackPane = new StackPane();

        fieldLabel = new Label();
        readOnlyLabel = new Label();

        htmlEditor = new HTMLEditor();
    }

    @Override
    public void layoutParts() {
        super.layoutParts();

        readOnlyLabel.getStyleClass().add("read-only-label");

        readOnlyLabel.setPrefHeight(26);

        stackPane.getChildren().addAll(htmlEditor, readOnlyLabel);

        stackPane.setAlignment(Pos.CENTER_LEFT);

        // Cannot access private instance variable 'field' here.
        int columns = 12;

        if (columns < 3) {
            add(fieldLabel, 0, 0, columns, 1);
            add(stackPane, 0, 1, columns, 1);
        } else {
            add(fieldLabel, 0, 0, 2, 1);
            add(stackPane, 2, 0, columns - 2, 1);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void setupBindings() {
        super.setupBindings();
    }

    @Override
    public void setupValueChangedListeners() {
        super.setupValueChangedListeners();
    }
}

If I hardcode the column count, as you can see below my inline code comment above, the HTMLEditor is displayed fine. Otherwise, if I try to to call getSpan() on the field to get the field's actual column span I get a compile time error. Can you please make that field protected so subclasses can use it?