Documentation

JFormDesigner

Introduction

JFormDesigner is an innovative GUI designer for Java Swing user interfaces. Its outstanding support for JGoodies FormLayout, GroupLayout (Free Design), TableLayout and GridBagLayout makes it easy to create professional looking forms.

JFormDesigner is available in four editions: as stand-alone application and as IDE plug-ins for Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA and JBuilder. This documentation covers all editions. If there are functional differences between the editions, then they are marked with: Stand-alone, Eclipse plug-in, IntelliJ IDEA plug-in, JBuilder plug-in or IDE plug-ins.

A printable version (PDF) of this documentation is available here: www.formdev.com/jformdesigner/download/.

Key features

• Easy and intuitive to use, powerful and productive
  JFormDesigner provides an easy-to-use but powerful user interface. Easily drag and drop components, resize components, set properties, etc. Powerful features like in-place-editing, drag and drop of columns/rows, bean morphing, layout manager changing increase your productivity.
• IDE plug-ins and stand-alone application
  JFormDesigner is available as IDE plug-ins for Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA and JBuilder and as stand-alone application.
• GroupLayout (Free Design) support
  GroupLayout support brings the "Free Design" paradigm to JFormDesigner (as in NetBeans GUI Builder; formerly Project Matisse). You can lay out your forms by simply placing components where you want them. Visual guidelines suggest optimal spacing, alignment and resizing of components. This makes it easy to design professional-looking GUIs.
• JGoodies FormLayout and TableLayout support
  These open-source layout managers allow you to design high quality forms. JGoodies FormLayout support includes column/row specifications (alignment, size, resize behavior), IntelliGap (automatically handles gap columns/rows) and column/row grouping (makes widths/heights equal). Also other parts of the JGoodies Forms framework are supported (DLU borders, component factory). TableLayout is fully supported (column/row size, gaps, alignment).
• Advanced GridBagLayout support
  The advanced GridBagLayout support allows the specification of horizontal and vertical gaps (as in TableLayout). JFormDesigner automatically computes the GridBagConstraints.insets for all components. This makes designing a form with consistent gaps using GridBagLayout much easier. No longer wrestling with GridBagConstraints.insets.
• Column and row headers
  The column and row headers (for grid-based layout managers) show the structure of the layout (including column/row indices, alignment, growing, grouping) and allow you to insert or delete columns/rows and change column/row properties. It's also possible to drag and drop columns/rows (incl. contained components and gaps). This allows you to swap columns or move rows in seconds.
• 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.
• Java code generator or runtime library
  Either let JFormDesigner generate Java source code for your forms (the default) or use the open-source (BSD license) runtime library to load JFormDesigner XML files at runtime. Your choice. Turn off the code generator in the Preferences, if you don't need it.
• Generation of nested classes
  The Java code generator is able to generate and update nested classes. You can specify a class name for each component in your form. This allows you to organize your source code in an object-oriented way.