The JFormDesigner / FormDev Blog

JFormDesigner 5.0.2 with IntelliJ IDEA 11 support

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:01:37 +0100

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 Change Log for details and download JFormDesigner 5.0.2.

Swing Tip: JSplitPane with zero-size divider

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0200

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 splitPane.setDividerSize(1). 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.

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 JSplitPane.layout() and modify the bounds of the divider (e.g. increase width and move left):

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 );
	}

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

	@Override
	public void updateUI() {
		setUI( new SplitPaneWithZeroSizeDividerUI() );
		revalidate();
	}

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

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

	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 );
		}
	}
}

That's it.

Download Source

Tested with Oracle/Sun Java 5, 6, and 7. Licensed under BSD-2-Clause with clause 2 removed.

JFormDesigner 5.0.1 and 5.1 Beta 3

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:58:59 +0200

We've just released JFormDesigner 5.0.1 and 5.1 Beta 3.

JFormDesigner 5.0.1

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 Change Log for details and download JFormDesigner 5.0.1.

JFormDesigner 5.1 Beta 3

Beta 3 Change Log:

Go to event handler method in Java editor.
All fixes from JFormDesigner 5.0.1.

Beta 2 Change Log:

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

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. Thanks.

JFormDesigner 5.1 Beta; NetBeans plug-in

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:13:22 +0200

Finally, the first build of the JFormDesigner plug-in for NetBeans is available now as part of JFormDesigner 5.1 Beta.

Major new features and improvements:

NetBeans plug-in.
JGoodies Forms 1.4 support.
New JFDML persistence format for .jfd form files. This is a compact, easy-to-merge and fast-to-load format.

Please have a look at the change log for a complete list of changes.

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. Thanks.

JFormDesigner 5 Released

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0200

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:

Beans Binding (JSR 295) support
BeanInfo Annotations
Improved Properties view
Project specific settings
Improved Choose Bean dialog
Auto-reload custom component classes
and more...

See What's New in JFormDesigner 5 for the significant or more interesting changes.
Please have a look at the change log for a complete list of changes.

Download JFormDesigner 5

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 here.

JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate 2

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:28:40 +0100

We've just released JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate 2.

Change Log:

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

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. 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.

JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0100

We've just released JFormDesigner 5 Release Candidate.

JFormDesigner 5 introduces more than 40 new features and enhancements.
See What's New in JFormDesigner 5 for the significant or more interesting changes.
Please have a look at the change log for a complete list of changes.

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. 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.

JFormDesigner 4.0.9 and 5 Beta 3

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:00:00 +0100

We've just released JFormDesigner 4.0.9 and 5 Beta 3.

JFormDesigner 4.0.9

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

See Change Log for details and download JFormDesigner 4.0.9.

JFormDesigner 5 Beta 3

Change Log:

Added property editor for string arrays.
I18n: Support localization of string arrays.
I18n: Externalization of forms from command-line.
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.
Minor bugs fixed.

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. Thanks.

JFormDesigner 5 Beta 2

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:27:47 +0200

We've just released JFormDesigner 5 Beta 2. This second beta contains an important bugfix for the i18n support. Users that use JFormDesigner's great i18n features are recommended to update from the first beta.

Change Log:

I18n: Fixed generation of wrong resource bundle keys (since 5 Beta).
Minor bugs fixed.

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. 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.

JFormDesigner 5 Beta

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:42:30 +0200

After hard (and long) work on the next major release of JFormDesigner, the first JFormDesigner 5 Beta build is finally available.

Major new features and improvements:

Beans Binding (JSR 295) support.
Project specific settings.
JGoodies Forms 1.3 support.
Properties view: Ability to filter properties.
Properties view: "Group by Category", "Group by Defining Type" and "Alphabetical" commands introduced.
Properties view: Moved "Code Generation" properties from own tab to category into properties table.
"Choose Bean" dialog now supports camel-case search.
Automatically reload custom components when changed.
Automatically refresh designers on project classpath changes.
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.
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.

For more new features and improvements see the change log.

Please give it a try, download it and report bugs. 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.

JFormDesigner IDE compatibility

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0200

Recently we blogged about JFormDesigner and Eclipse Helios (3.6) compatibility. 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:

16 Eclipse releases (3.1, 3.1.1, ..., 3.6)
30 IntelliJ IDEA releases (5.1, 5.1.1, ..., 9.0.3)
2 JBuilder releases (2005 and 2006)

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:

Source code compatibility is checked by compiling the plug-in sources with all supported versions of the IDE libraries.
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.

JFormDesigner and Eclipse Helios (3.6) compatibility

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:11:01 +0200

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.

Welcome to the JFormDesigner / FormDev Blog

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0200

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 & 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 CMS, which powers this blog. It also makes it easier for us to write new and update existing content.