JBuilder plug-in

This plug-in integrates JFormDesigner into JBuilder 2006. For JBuilder 2007 (or later) use the Eclipse plug-in. For JBuilder 2005 use JFormDesigner 4.

Benefits

Using this plug-in has following benefits compared to JFormDesigner stand-alone edition:

User interface

The screenshot below shows the JBuilder main window editing a JFormDesigner form.

JBuilder main window

A JFormDesigner editor consists of:

Creating new forms

You can create new forms using JBuilder's object gallery. Click the New arrow in the toolbar and choose JFormDesigner Form.

New Form Menu

In the New JFormDesigner Form dialog, enter the form name (which is also used as class name), choose a superclass, a layout manager and set localization options.

Open forms for editing

You can open existing forms the same way as opening any other file in JBuilder. Locate it in JBuilder's project view and double-click it.

Go to Java code / Go to form

JFormDesigner adds a button to JBuilder's main toolbar that enables you to switch quickly from a JFormDesigner form editor to its Java editor and vice versa. If a form editor is active, then the button is named Go to Java code (). If a Java editor is active, then it is named Go to JFormDesigner form ().

Go to Java code   Go to form

Code folding

To move the generated code out of the way, JFormDesigner folds it in the Java editor.

Code folding

Convert JBuilder forms

You can convert existing JBuilder forms to JFormDesigner forms. Right-click on the Java file and select Convert to JFormDesigner Form.

Convert forms

Note: JFormDesigner inserts its own generated GUI code into the existing Java class, but does not remove JBuilder's GUI code. You have to remove JBuilder's component variables and initialization code yourself.

Preferences

The JFormDesigner preferences are fully integrated into the JBuilder preferences dialog. Select Tools > Preferences from the menu to open it. See Preferences for details.

Unsupported features

Following features from other editions are not supported by the JBuilder plug-in: