JFormDesigner 2 introduces more than 80 new features and enhancements. This topic describes some of the significant or more interesting changes. Please have a look at the change log for a complete list of changes.
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Menu designer | The menu
designer makes it easy to create and
modify menu bars and
popup menus. It supports in-place-editing menu texts and
drag-and-drop menu
items. The component palette category
"Menus" contains all menu components.![]() |
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Localization support | Localizing
forms using properties files has
never been easier. Specify a
resource bundle name and a prefix for keys when creating a new form and
then forget about it. JFormDesigner automatically puts all strings into
the specified resource bundle (auto-externalizing). It also updates
resource keys when
renaming components, copies resource strings when copying components
and removes resource strings when deleting components. You can also externalize and internalize strings, edit resource bundle strings, add locales, switch locale used in Design view, in-place-edit text of current locale. ![]() |
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Palette customization | The component palette
is fully customizable.
Right-click on
the palette to add, edit, remove or reorder components and categories.
Or
use the Palette Manager
dialog.![]() |
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Support for events | JFormDesigner supports adding and removing event handlers and generates
empty handler methods. It shows events in the Structure view and event
properties
in the Properties view.![]() |
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Morph Bean | The "Morph Bean" command allows you to change the class of existing components without loosing properties, events or layout information. Right-click on a component in the Design or Structure view and select Morph Bean from the popup menu. |
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Layout manager changing | Layout manager changing allows you to change the layout manager used by a container without loosing child components. The layout is converted to the new layout manager as good as possible. Right-click on a container in the Design or Structure view and select Set Layout Manager from the popup menu and choose the new layout manager. |
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Marquee selection tool | The marquee selection tool allows you to select
components in a
rectangular area. Select Marquee
Selection in the Palette and
click-and-drag a rectangular selection
area in the Design view. Or
click-and-drag on the free area in the Design
view. All components that lie partially within the
selection rectangle are selected.![]() |
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Auto-insert columns/rows | Besides using "Insert Column" or "Insert Row"
from the column/row header
popup menu, you can now
insert new columns/row when dropping components on column/row gaps or
outside of the existing grid.![]() ![]() In the first figure, a new row will be inserted between existing rows. In the second figure, a virtual grid is shown below/right to the existing grid and a new row will be added. |
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Moving multiple selected components | JFormDesigner now allows you to drag and drop
multiple selected
components at once in the Design
view in all layout managers. The layout constraints
are preserved where possible.![]() |
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Tooltips when moving or resizing components | Tooltips when moving or resizing
components show you detailed information about the insert location, the
new size and the size differences.![]() |
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Default alignment in GridBagLayout and TableLayout | Allows you to specify a default alignment for
components within
columns/rows in GridBagLayout
and TableLayout
(as already supported by FormLayout).
This is very useful for columns with right aligned labels
because you specify the alignment only once for the column and all
added labels will automatically aligned to the right![]() |
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Improved JTabbedPane support | Now you can insert new tabs into a JTabbedPane before existing
tabs and you can reorder tabs in the Design
view by dragging a
page
component over the tabs. The visual feedback shows the insert location
and the tooltip the tab index. You can also drag and drop page
components in the Structure
view
to change its order.![]() ![]() |
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null layout manager support | The null
Layout
allows you
to make quick prototypes. null layout is not a real
layout manager. It means that no layout manager is assigned and the
components can be put at specific x,y coordinates. JFormDesigner's null
layout implementation supports preferred component sizes, grid
snapping, aligning components and is able to compute the preferred size
of the container.![]() |
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Non-visual JavaBeans | To add a non-visual bean to
a form, select it in the Palette (or
use Choose Bean) and drop
it into the free area of the Design
view. Non-visual beans are shown in the Design view using proxy
components.![]() |
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Right-to-left component orientation | Right-to-left component orientation is now
supported in the Design view for
all layout managers that support it.![]() |
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Drag and drop in Structure view | The Structure
view supports drag and drop to rearrange components. You can also add
new components from the palette to
the Structure view. Besides the feedback indicator in the structure
tree, JFormDesigner also displays a green feedback figure in the Design view to show the new location.![]() |
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Multi-selection property editing | The Properties
view supports editing properties of multiple
selected components.![]() |
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New Choose Bean dialog | The new Choose
Bean dialog allows you to
search for classes
in the classpath, history and palette. You can also specify whether a
bean is a container or not and add the chosen bean to the palette.![]() |
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Custom Look and Feels | Use your favorite look and feel in the Design view. Add it on the Look and Feels
preferences page.![]() |
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Import NetBeans forms | JFormDesigner can import NetBeans forms (.form files). Either select File > Import from the main menu or drag .form files to the JFormDesigner window. When saving a imported NetBeans form, JFormDesigner replaces the NetBeans generated code with its own code. If using NetBeans, you should remove (and backup) the .form files. Otherwise NetBeans would again replace the JFormDesigner generated code with its own code. |
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Convert JBuilder jbInit() methods | JFDConverterOpenTool is a JBuilder X (or later) plugin to convert JBuilder forms (jbInit() methods) to JFormDesigner .jfd files. It analyzes the jbInit() method and converts as much as possible to a JFormDesigner form model and saves it to a .jfd file. Please download JFDConverterOpenTool here: www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/. |
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Custom column/row templates for FormLayout | If the predefined FormLayout column/row templates
does not fit to your needs, you can define your own column/row
templates in the FormLayout
preferences.![]() |
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Class hierarchy tooltip | The tooltip of the "Class"
property shows the class hierarchy of the component.![]() |
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New property editors | Added property
editors for javax.swing.SpinnerDateModel , javax.swing.SpinnerListModel ,
java.awt.Cursor , javax.swing.border.MatteBorder
and javax.swing.KeyStroke .
The KeyStroke editor supports
menu shortcut modifier key (Command key on
Mac OS X, Ctrl key otherwise).![]() |
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