Designing layouts with layout managers For more information, see Designing a user interface in Building Applications with JBuilder. Using the Inspector, you can: Set the initial property values for components in a container and for the container and its layout manager (initialization code). Create, name, and delete event listeners in a container that will receive events from the component in the container (event handling code). Save text property String values to a ResourceBundle, or revert a resourced String back to a String constant. Change the level of properties exposed in the Inspector. Expose a property as a class level variable so you can change it in the Inspector. Any changes you make in the Inspector are reflected immediately in the source code and in the UI designer. For more information, see Handling events in Building Applications with JBuilder. Opening the Inspector To display the Inspector, 1 Select a Java file in the project pane and press Enter to open the file in the content pane. 2 Select the Design tab at the bottom of the AppBrowser to access the designer. The Inspector is displayed at the right of the content pane. 3 Adjust the width of the Inspector by dragging its left border. For more information, see Using the Inspector in Building Applications with JBuilder. Designing layouts with layout managers A program written in Java might be deployed on more than one platform. If you were to use classic UI design techniques that specify absolute positions and sizes for your UI components, the UI might not look as you intended on all platforms. What looks fine on your development system might be unusable on another platform. To solve this problem, Java provides a system of portable layout managers. Building a user interface 6-5
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Setting component properties and events To return to the UI designer, double-click any component in the UI folder of the component tree. For more information, see Designing menus in Building Applications with JBuilder. Setting component properties and events The Inspector in the UI designer allows you to visually edit component properties and attach code to component events. You can make changes to the properties and events in the Inspector and the appropriate code is automatically inserted into your source code. 6-4 Learning Java with JBuilder
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Designing menus Viewing a file 1 Double-click a Java file in the project pane. The file opens in the source editor in the content pane. 2 Select the Design tab at the bottom of the content pane. The file changes to the design view, or the designer. The component palette and the Inspector become available. Adding and manipulating components Click a component in the component palette to select it. Click either in the designer or on the component s parent in the structure pane to drop the chosen component into the designer. Use the component tree in the structure pane to keep track of where your UI components are in relation to each other. Cut and paste components in the component tree to stack and nest them the way you want them. Select the container you want to apply a layout manager to, then select layout in the Inspector to choose and apply the desired layout manager. Double-click the right column fields of the Inspector to view available values or activate text fields. Note JBuilder keeps the designer and the Java source code synchronized. When you change the design in the UI designer, JBuilder automatically updates the source code, and when you change the source code, the change is reflected in the UI designer. For more information, see JBuilder s visual design tools in Designing a user interface in Building Applications with JBuilder. Designing menus JBuilder includes a menu designer that makes it easy to create menus. You can visually design both drop-down and pop-up menus. To access JBuilder s menu designer, 1 Double-click a Java file in the project pane to open it. 2 Select the Design tab at the bottom of the content pane to change to the designer. 3 Add a menu component by clicking a menu component from the component palette then clicking in your design. 4 Double-click the new menu component in the component tree to activate the menu designer. Building a user interface 6-3
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Using the UI designer Table 6.1 JBuilder s visual design tools Design tools Description UI designer Provides a surface for placing and editing panels and other UI components. To access the UI designer for an open file, select the Design tab at the bottom of the content pane. Component palette Contains visual and nonvisual Java components. Components on the palette vary by JBuilder edition. Component tree Displays a structured view of all the components in your source file and their relationships. This is shown in the structure pane at the lower left of the AppBrowser. Inspector Used to inspect and set the values of component properties and to attach methods to component events. Changes made in the Inspector are reflected visually in your design. Menu designer Used to design menus on the design surface. To invoke it while in the UI designer, double-click a JMenuBar or JPopupMenu component in the component tree, or select the component and press Enter. Available in JBuilder Column designer Allows you to work visually with data set components. To Professional and Enterprise invoke it, double-click a data set. For more information, see Chapter 16, Building an application and Chapter 19, Building a Java text editor. You can also see the online tutorial Creating a UI with nested layouts. For more information, see Designing a user interface in Building Applications with JBuilder. Using the UI designer JBuilder provides tools for visually designing and programming Java classes, allowing you to produce new compound or complex components. To use the visual design tools, a file must meet the following requirements: It must be a Java file (excluding Inner and Anonymous classes). It must be free from syntax errors. It must contain a class whose name matches the file name. Note The class cannot be an Inner class or an Anonymous class. The UI designer is used to manipulate JavaBeans that extend java.awt.Container. For example, the JavaBean can extend any of the following classes: JFrame JPanel JDialog JApplet Note These requirements are all met when you create files with the Application wizard or the Applet wizard. 6-2 Learning Java with JBuilder
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Chapter 6 Building a user interface Using JBuilder s visual design tools, you can quickly and easily create a user interface (UI) for a Java application or applet. You construct the UI using a palette that contains components such as buttons, text areas, lists, dialogs, and menus. Then you set the values of the component properties and attach event-handler code to the component events, telling the program how to respond to UI events. Figure 6.1 The AppBrowser and the UI designer Building a user interface 6-1
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5-16 Learning Java with JBuilder
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Working with applets 4 Complete the three-step wizard to create the applet. The applet is added to the project. For more information on deploying applets, see Deploying Java programs in Building Applications with JBuilder. Automating application development 5-15
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Working with applets For more information, see Creating JavaBeans with BeansExpress in Building Applications with JBuilder. Working with applets Applets are Java programs that are stored on Internet/intranet web servers. Unlike applications, applets are not stand-alone programs but require a viewer to run, such as a web browser. Applets must be launched from an HTML web page that includes an APPLET tag. Before developing applets, it s important to fully understand browser and JDK compatibility issues. See Working with applets in Building Applications with JBuilder and Chapter 17, Building an applet for information on these issues. Using the Applet wizard JBuilder provides an Applet wizard to assist you in creating applets. The Applet wizard creates an applet consisting of two files and adds them to the existing project: An HTML file containing an APPLET tag referencing your applet class. This is the file you should select to run or debug your applet. A Java class that extends JApplet or Applet. This is your main UI container to which you ll add UI components using the UI designer. To open the Applet wizard, 1 Close all open projects. 2 Choose File|New. Double-click the Applet icon in the object gallery. The Project wizard opens first. You must create a project before creating an applet. 3 Complete the three steps of the Project wizard. The Applet wizard opens. 5-14 Learning Java with JBuilder
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Creating JavaBeans Creating JavaBeans This is a feature of JBuilder Professional and Enterprise. A JavaBean is a collection of one or more Java classes that serves as a self-contained, reusable component. A JavaBean can be a discrete component used in building a user interface or a non-UI component such as a data module or computation engine. At its simplest, a JavaBean is a public Java class that has a constructor with no parameters. JavaBeans usually have properties, methods, and events that follow certain naming conventions. JavaBeans have some unique advantages over other components, such as: They are pure Java, cross-platform components. You can install them on the JBuilder component palette and use them in the construction and design of your program, or they can be used in other application builder tools for Java. They can be deployed in JAR files. JBuilder s BeansExpress, available in Professional and Enterprise, is the fastest way to create JavaBeans. It consists of a set of wizards, visual designers, and code samples that help you build JavaBeans rapidly and easily. Once you have a JavaBean, you can use BeansExpress to make changes to it. Or you can take an existing Java class and turn it into a JavaBean. To access JBuilder s JavaBean wizard to start creating a JavaBean, 1 Choose File|New Project and create a new project with the Project wizard. 2 Choose File|New to display the object gallery. 3 Double-click the JavaBean icon on the New page of the object gallery to open the JavaBean wizard. Automating application development 5-13
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Working with projects Working with multiple projects When working with multiple projects, you can open them in one instance of the AppBrowser or in different instances. All open projects are available from any open AppBrowser instance. However, you can only view the files of one project at a time in each AppBrowser instance. There are several ways to switch between multiple open projects and files: Select the project from the drop-down list on the project toolbar. Select the file from the list of open files in the Window menu. You can also instantiate another AppBrowser or switch between open AppBrowsers from the Window menu. For more information, see Creating and managing projects in Building Applications with JBuilder. 5-12 Learning Java with JBuilder
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