JFormDesigner 2.0.2 review
DownloadJFormDesigner™ is an innovative GUI designer for Java™ Swing user interfaces.
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JFormDesigner™ is an innovative GUI designer for Java™ Swing user interfaces.
Its outstanding support for JGoodies FormLayout, Clearthought's TableLayout and GridBagLayout makes it easy to create professional looking forms.
JFormDesigner makes Swing GUI design a real pleasure. It decreases the time you spend on hand coding forms, giving you more time to focus on the real tasks. You'll find that JFormDesigner quickly pays back its cost in improved GUI quality and increased developer productivity.
Here are some key features of "JFormDesigner":
Easy and intuitive to use, powerful and productive: JFormDesigner provides an easy-to-use but powerful user interface. Even non-programmers can use it, which makes it also ideal for prototyping.
JGoodies FormLayout and Clearthought's TableLayout support: These well-known open source layout managers allow you to design high quality forms. JFormDesigner provides excellent support for them.
Advanced GridBagLayout support allows the specification of horizontal and vertical gaps (as in TableLayout). This makes it very easy to design forms with consistent gaps using GridBagLayout. No longer wrestling with GridBagConstraints.insets.
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).
Java code generator or runtime library: Either let JFormDesigner generate Java source code for your forms (the default) or use the royalty-free runtime library to load JFormDesigner XML files at runtime. Your choice.
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.
Limitations:
20 day evaluation period.
What's New:
New Features
Assign "labelFor" property of labels in component context menu.
Allow remove or reassign of refactored or unknown properties.
Java code generator: Generate BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder() for empty EmptyBorders.
Bugs fixed
Marquee selection no longer selects invisible components in JTabbedPane and CardLayout.
Size of GridBagLayout panel too small in some situations.
Column/row headers not always updated when moving a panel.
Pasting non-visual beans may cause errors on save.
"Restore Default Value" in Properties view did not use the current look and feel.
Morphing did not remove read-only properties.
Fixed exception when using JMenuBar and WinLAF look and feel.
Java code generator: Fixed exception when using a menu bar and null layout in a JFrame.
Java code generator: Fixed generated event handler invocation code for the case that the listener interface has a method with the same name as the handler method.
Mac OS X: Command key now works as expected to add multiple components. No longer drops component to parent of container.
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