The JFormDesigner / FormDev Blog

The JFormDesigner / FormDev Blog http://www.formdev.com/blog/ JFormDesigner 5.1 Released http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-1-released/ We're pleased to announce the immediate availability of JFormDesigner
5.1, now with NetBeans plug-in, Java 7 support,
GroupLayout design improvements and more.

<img src="http://www.formdev.com/assets/images/jformdesigner/blog/netbeans_plugin2.png" alt="NetBeans plug-in" width="640" height="376" />

Feature Highlights:
<ul>
<li>NetBeans plug-in</li>
<li>Java 7 support</li>
<li>JGoodies Forms 1.4 and 1.5 support</li>
<li>GroupLayout design improved</li>
<li>JFDML persistence format for .jfd form files</li>
<li>Palette improved</li>
<li>Batch convert forms</li>
<li>NetBeans 7.1 form conversion</li>
<li>and more...</li>
</ul>

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/whatsnew/51/">What's New in JFormDesigner 5.1</a> for
the significant or more interesting changes. 
Please have a look at the <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/51/">change log</a> for a
complete list of changes.

<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">Download JFormDesigner 5.1</a>

Customer information: JFormDesigner 5.1 is free of charge
for existing customers if the "Free updates until" date of your license key is
2010-07-26 or later. Upgrades
are available <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/buy/upgrade/">here</a>. Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-1-released/ JFormDesigner 5.0.4 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-4/ We've just released JFormDesigner 5.0.4, which fixes a NullPointerException
in the Java code generator (since 5.0.3).

Users of 5.0.3 are recommended to update to 5.0.4.

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/#5_0_4">Change Log</a> for details
and <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">download JFormDesigner 5.0.4</a>. Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:11:05 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-4/ JFormDesigner 5.0.3 with IntelliJ IDEA 11.1 support http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-3-with-intellij-idea-11-1-support/ We've just released JFormDesigner 5.0.3, which is now compatible with
IntelliJ IDEA 11.1, fixes minor bugs and brings some minor improvements.

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/#5_0_3">Change Log</a> for details
and <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">download JFormDesigner 5.0.3</a>. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:22:49 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-3-with-intellij-idea-11-1-support/ JFormDesigner 5.0.2 with IntelliJ IDEA 11 support http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-2-with-intellij-idea-11-support/ We've just released JFormDesigner 5.0.2, which is now compatible with
IntelliJ IDEA 11, fixes minor bugs and brings some minor improvements.

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/#5_0_2">Change Log</a> for details and
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">download JFormDesigner 5.0.2</a>. Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:01:37 +0100 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-2-with-intellij-idea-11-support/ Swing Tip: JSplitPane with zero-size divider http://www.formdev.com/blog/swing-tip-jsplitpane-with-zero-size-divider/ Modern GUIs are becoming more and more minimalistic. Most controls (e.g. text
fields or buttons) nowadays use 1 pixel thin borders. Everybody is removing
borders from scroll and split panes. Even the split pane divider is often
reduced to 1 pixel (e.g. on Mac OS X since years or in current Mozilla
Thunderbird).

But how to create a 1 pixel thin divider with JSplitPane?

First idea was of course to invoke <code>splitPane.setDividerSize(1)</code>.
This seems to work, but has the disadvantage that it is very hard for the user
to hit that single pixel line to move the divider. What we need is a
transparent divider that has a easy-to-hit
width (e.g. 9 pixels) and is placed between and over
the left and right split pane components.

<img src="http://www.formdev.com/assets/images/jformdesigner/blog/zeros-size-split-divider.png" alt="zeros-size split divider" width="351" height="150" />

Thanks to Swing's flexible design, it is relative easy to implement this.

First we set the divider size to 1 and let the split pane layout manager do
its work. The trick is now to override <code>JSplitPane.layout()</code> and
modify the bounds of the divider (e.g. increase width and move left):

<pre class="code-highlight-java">public class JSplitPaneWithZeroSizeDivider extends JSplitPane {
private int dividerDragSize = 9;
private int dividerDragOffset = 4;

public JSplitPaneWithZeroSizeDivider() {
setDividerSize( 1 );
setContinuousLayout( true );
}

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

// increase divider width or height
BasicSplitPaneDivider divider = ((BasicSplitPaneUI)getUI()).getDivider();
Rectangle bounds = divider.getBounds();
if( orientation == HORIZONTAL_SPLIT ) {
bounds.x -= dividerDragOffset;
bounds.width = dividerDragSize;
} else {
bounds.y -= dividerDragOffset;
bounds.height = dividerDragSize;
}
divider.setBounds( bounds );
}
</pre>

Then we need our own UI delegate that creates our divider.

<pre class="code-highlight-java"> @Override
public void updateUI() {
setUI( new SplitPaneWithZeroSizeDividerUI() );
revalidate();
}

private class SplitPaneWithZeroSizeDividerUI extends BasicSplitPaneUI {
@Override
public BasicSplitPaneDivider createDefaultDivider() {
return new ZeroSizeDivider( this );
}
}
</pre>

And finally our divider, which draws the divider line and updates the drag
locations.

<pre class="code-highlight-java"> private class ZeroSizeDivider extends BasicSplitPaneDivider {
public ZeroSizeDivider( BasicSplitPaneUI ui ) {
super( ui );
super.setBorder( null );
setBackground( UIManager.getColor( "controlShadow" ) );
}

@Override
public void setBorder( Border border ) {
// ignore
}

@Override
public void paint( Graphics g ) {
g.setColor( getBackground() );
if( orientation == HORIZONTAL_SPLIT )
g.drawLine( dividerDragOffset, 0, dividerDragOffset, getHeight() - 1 );
else
g.drawLine( 0, dividerDragOffset, getWidth() - 1, dividerDragOffset );
}

@Override
protected void dragDividerTo( int location ) {
super.dragDividerTo( location + dividerDragOffset );
}

@Override
protected void finishDraggingTo( int location ) {
super.finishDraggingTo( location + dividerDragOffset );
}
}
}
</pre>

That's it.

<a class="zip" href="http://download.formdev.com/swing-tips/JSplitPaneWithZeroSizeDivider.zip">Download
Source</a>

Tested with Oracle/Sun Java 5, 6, and 7. Licensed under
<a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause" target="_blank">BSD-2-Clause</a>
with clause 2 removed. Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/swing-tip-jsplitpane-with-zero-size-divider/ JFormDesigner 5.0.1 and 5.1 Beta 3 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-1-and-5-1-beta-3/ We've just released JFormDesigner 5.0.1 and
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/">5.1 Beta 3</a>.

<h3>JFormDesigner 5.0.1</h3>

This release fixes minor bugs and brings some minor improvements.

If you're running JFormDesigner in a Java 7 VM, it is
recommened to update to this release because it fixes a NullPointerException
when using TitledBorder and running JFormDesigner in a Java 7 VM.

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/#5_0_1">Change Log</a> for details and
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">download JFormDesigner 5.0.1</a>.

<h3>JFormDesigner 5.1 Beta 3</h3>

Beta 3 Change Log:
<ul>
<li>Go to event handler method in Java editor.</li>
<li>All fixes from JFormDesigner 5.0.1.</li>
</ul>

Beta 2 Change Log:
<ul>
<li>NetBeans: Project specific options.</li>
<li>Palette: Display multiple items per row if there is enough room.</li>
<li>Palette: New option "Item Names" in context menu to show only item
icons.</li>
<li>NetBeans: fixed too dark background of panels, palette, headers, etc on
Mac.</li>
<li>NetBeans: bug fixes.</li>
<li>Fixed NullPointerException when using TitledBorder and running 
JFormDesigner in a Java 7 VM.</li>
</ul>

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks. Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:58:59 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-1-and-5-1-beta-3/ JFormDesigner 5.1 Beta; NetBeans plug-in http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-1-beta-netbeans-plug-in/ Finally, the first build of the JFormDesigner plug-in for
NetBeans is available now as part of
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/">JFormDesigner 5.1 Beta</a>.

<img src="http://www.formdev.com/assets/images/jformdesigner/blog/netbeans_plugin.png" alt="NetBeans plug-in" width="630" height="464" />

Major new features and improvements:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/doc/ides/netbeans/">NetBeans plug-in</a>.</li>
<li>JGoodies Forms 1.4 support.</li>
<li>New JFDML persistence format for .jfd form files. This is a compact,
easy-to-merge and fast-to-load format.</li>
</ul>

Please have a look at the <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/51/">change log</a> for
a complete list of changes.

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks. Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:13:22 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-1-beta-netbeans-plug-in/ JFormDesigner 5 Released http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-released/ We're pleased to announce the immediate availability of JFormDesigner
5, now with Beans Binding (JSR 295) support, BeanInfo annotations,
project specific settings and more.

Feature Highlights:
<ul>
<li class="h2">Beans Binding (JSR 295) support</li>
<li class="h2">BeanInfo Annotations</li>
<li class="h2">Improved Properties view</li>
<li class="h2">Project specific settings</li>
<li class="h2">Improved Choose Bean dialog</li>
<li class="h2">Auto-reload custom component classes</li>
<li class="h2">and more...</li>
</ul>

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/whatsnew/50/">What's New in JFormDesigner 5</a> for
the significant or more interesting changes. 
Please have a look at the <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/">change log</a> for a
complete list of changes.

<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">Download JFormDesigner 5</a>

Customer information: JFormDesigner 5 is free of charge for
existing customers if the "Free updates until" date of your license key is
2010-01-01 or later. Upgrades
are available <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/buy/upgrade/">here</a>. Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-released/ JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate 2 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-release-candidate-2/ We've just released <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/">JFormDesigner 5 Release
Candidate 2</a>.

Change Log:
<ul>
<li>Stand-alone on Mac OS X: JFormDesigner canceled Log Out and Shut Down even
when there were no unsaved forms.</li>
<li>Stand-alone: Improved startup script for Unix/Linux based systems.</li>
<li>NetBeans form converter: Fixed occasional error when converting NetBeans
6.9+ forms.</li>
<li>Minor bugs fixed.</li>
</ul>

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks.

Customer information: JFormDesigner 5 is free of charge for
existing customers if the "Free updates until" date of the license key is
2010-01-01 or later. Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:28:40 +0100 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-release-candidate-2/ JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-release-candidate/ We've just released JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate.

JFormDesigner 5 introduces more than 40 new features and
enhancements. 
See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/whatsnew/50/">What's New in JFormDesigner 5</a> for the
significant or more interesting changes. 
Please have a look at the <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/">change log</a> for a
complete list of changes.

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks.

Customer information: JFormDesigner 5 is free of charge for
existing customers if the "Free updates until" date of your license key is
2010-01-01 or later. Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0100 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-release-candidate/ JFormDesigner 4.0.9 and 5 Beta 3 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-4-0-9-and-5-0-beta-3/ We've just released JFormDesigner 4.0.9 and
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/">5 Beta 3</a>.

<h3>JFormDesigner 4.0.9</h3>

This release fixes minor bugs and brings some minor improvements. It now
supports Java 7 EA.

See <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/40/#4_0_9">Change Log</a> for details and
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/">download JFormDesigner 4.0.9</a>.

<h3>JFormDesigner 5 Beta 3</h3>

Change Log:
<ul>
<li>Added property editor for string arrays.</li>
<li>I18n: Support localization of string arrays.</li>
<li>I18n: Externalization of forms from command-line.</li>
<li>Look and Feels: Added option "Enable Look and Feel switching" to "Look and
Feels" preferences page, which allows you to disable Look and Feel switching if
it causes problems.</li>
<li>Minor bugs fixed.</li>
</ul>

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks. Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:00:00 +0100 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-4-0-9-and-5-0-beta-3/ JFormDesigner 5 Beta 2 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-beta-2/ We've just released <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/">JFormDesigner 5 Beta
2</a>. This second beta contains an important bugfix for the i18n support. Users
that use JFormDesigner's great <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/doc/ui/localization/">i18n</a> features
are recommended to update from the first beta.

Change Log:
<ul>
<li>I18n: Fixed generation of wrong resource bundle keys (since 5 Beta).</li>
<li>Minor bugs fixed.</li>
</ul>

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks.

Customer information: JFormDesigner 5 is free of charge for
existing customers if the "Free updates until" date of the license key is
2010-01-01 or later. Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:27:47 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-beta-2/ JFormDesigner 5 Beta http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-beta/ After hard (and long) work on the next major release of JFormDesigner, the
first <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/">JFormDesigner 5 Beta</a> build is finally
available.

Major new features and improvements:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/doc/ui/beans-binding/">Beans Binding (JSR 295)</a> support.</li>
<li>Project specific settings.</li>
<li>JGoodies Forms 1.3 support.</li>
<li>Properties view: Ability to filter properties.</li>
<li>Properties view: "Group by Category", "Group by Defining Type" and
"Alphabetical" commands introduced.</li>
<li>Properties view: Moved "Code Generation" properties from own tab to category
into properties table.</li>
<li>"Choose Bean" dialog now supports camel-case search.</li>
<li>Automatically reload custom components when changed.</li>
<li>Automatically refresh designers on project classpath changes.</li>
<li>Simplified handling of JScrollPanes: now you can select the child of a
JScrollPane and change layout properties of the JScrollPane in the Properties
view and using the context popup menu.</li>
<li>Eclipse plug-in: The Java code generator can now use the Eclipse code
formatter to format generated code. Enable option "Use Eclipse code formatter"
in "Java Code Generator" preferences.</li>
</ul>

For more new features and improvements see the
<a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/changelog/50/">change log</a>.

Please give it a try, <a href="http://www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/beta/#download">download</a>
it and <a href="mailto:support@formdev.com">report bugs</a>. Thanks.

Customer information: JFormDesigner 5 is free of charge for
existing customers if the "Free updates until" date of the license key is
2010-01-01 or later. Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:42:30 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-5-0-beta/ JFormDesigner IDE compatibility http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-ide-compatibility/ Recently we blogged about <a href="http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-eclipse-helios-compatibility/">JFormDesigner and
Eclipse Helios (3.6) compatibility</a>. This time we would like to give you some
insight into how we test compatibility with IDEs.

Currently we provide JFormDesigner plug-ins for three IDEs:
Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA and
JBuilder. And soon, we'll support two additional IDEs:
NetBeans and JDeveloper.

JFormDesigner 4.0.8 supports 48 IDE releases:
<ul>
<li>16 Eclipse releases (3.1, 3.1.1, ..., 3.6)</li>
<li>30 IntelliJ IDEA releases (5.1, 5.1.1, ..., 9.0.3)</li>
<li>2 JBuilder releases (2005 and 2006)</li>
</ul>

In JFormDesigner 5 we'll reduce the number by 14 because we'll no longer
support Eclipse 3.1, IntelliJ IDEA 5.1 - 6.0 and JBuilder 2005.

You can imagine that it is not an easy task to ensure compatibility with that
many IDE releases. Besides testing, testing and testing, we use of course
automated tests to check source code and binary compatibility:
<ul>
<li>Source code compatibility is checked by compiling the plug-in sources with
all supported versions of the IDE libraries.</li>
<li>But this is not enough because the obfuscator may break binary
compatibility. So we've developed an Ant task that checks whether the obfuscator
has renamed methods, which should override (or implement) methods in an IDE
superclass (or interface). This ensures binary compatibility.</li>
</ul> Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-ide-compatibility/ JFormDesigner and Eclipse Helios (3.6) compatibility http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-eclipse-helios-compatibility/ Congratulation to the Eclipse community for the recent release of Eclipse
Helios (3.6).

It's great to see that Eclipse 3.6 is still API compatible to previous
versions. This is not an easy task. But they did it. And we're happy about it
because JFormDesigner 4.0.8 runs without any modification in Eclipse 3.6.

Even JFormDesigner 3 and 3.1 seems to run without problems, but we don't
support officially Eclipse 3.6 for these old versions. Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:11:01 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/jformdesigner-eclipse-helios-compatibility/ Welcome to the JFormDesigner / FormDev Blog http://www.formdev.com/blog/welcome/ Hello and welcome to the JFormDesigner / FormDev blog.

In this blog we'll inform you about new JFormDesigner releases, new features,
enhancements, future development, product announcements and company news. We'll
also post articles and tips &amp; tricks around JFormDesigner.

You've probably noticed it. Our website has a new style. Hope you like it.
We've also migrated our website to a new modern open-source
<a href="http://www.silverstripe.org/" target="_blank">CMS</a>, which powers
this blog. It also makes it easier for us to write new and update existing
content. Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0200 http://www.formdev.com/blog/welcome/