custom widgets don't show

[Hans]

We have a panel that contains both standard widgets and some custom widgets that are created through a separate factory. In the designer only the standard widgets are shown. When I create a test class in the same project that creates the panel throug a no-arg constructor all widgets are displayed.
Could this still be a classpath issue? What is the best way to debug this in designer and find out why the widgets are not displayed when the panel instance is created from designer?

Hans Boerstra

[Eric Clayberg]

We have a panel that contains both standard widgets and some custom widgets that are created through a separate factory. In the designer only the standard widgets are shown. When I create a test class in the same project that creates the panel throug a no-arg constructor all widgets are displayed. Could this still be a classpath issue? What is the best way to debug this in designer and find out why the widgets are not displayed when the panel instance is created from designer?

The Designer parser is not going to understand an arbitrary factory creation method, so those widgets would be ignored.

Try instantiating your widgets with the normal zero argument constructor and see if it helps.

[Guest]

We have a panel that contains both standard widgets and some custom widgets that are created through a separate factory. In the designer only the standard widgets are shown. When I create a test class in the same project that creates the panel throug a no-arg constructor all widgets are displayed. Could this still be a classpath issue? What is the best way to debug this in designer and find out why the widgets are not displayed when the panel instance is created from designer?

The Designer parser is not going to understand an arbitrary factory creation method, so those widgets would be ignored.

Try instantiating your widgets with the normal zero argument constructor and see if it helps.

That's my problem: these widgets can not be instantiated like that. I used a seperate method to create widgets and assign them to fields and then in another method add them to the parent JPanel using the field references. Could that work or would Designer need to understand the widget creation too and the assigned widget fields are not enough?

Hans Boerstra

[Hans]

After reading the documentation (ok, ok: RTFM , I understand what the problem is of calling an arbitrary factory method because this has to be recreated in a target JVM without being able to execute the actual given statements.
I would think that this (using factory instances) is a general issue though: it is quite common to create a factory instance, set properties on it and then call its create methods. JGoodies builders like DefaultFormBuilder do the same for working with dynamic FormLayouts.
Is there a workaround solution to keep the easy of use for manual coding with factories/builders and still use Designer for the WYSIWYG layout stuff?

Hans Boerstra

[Eric Clayberg]

The latest v4.1.1 build can now understand most widget creation factory methods.

Give it a try, and, if it does not work in your case, send us a small, self-contained test case.

[Hans]

The latest v4.1.1 build can now understand most widget creation factory methods.

Give it a try, and, if it does not work in your case, send us a small, self-contained test case.

It is better, but still not complete. Below the test class. I sent the two other files through e-mail because I could figure out how to attach files on the forum.

Regards,

Hans

Code: Select all

package nl.test.eclipse.swing;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;


public class TestFactory2 extends JFrame {

   static final long serialVersionUID = 12345;
   
   private JPanel jContentPane = null;
   
   private Factory factory = null;

   /**
   * This is the default constructor
   */
   public TestFactory2() {
   super();
   initialize();
   }

   /**
   * This method initializes this
   *
   * @return void
   */
   private void initialize() {
      Factory.initialize("nl.test.eclipse.swing.");
      factory = new Factory("assigned value", String.class);
      this.setSize(300, 200);
      this.setContentPane(createContent());
      this.setTitle("JFrame");
   }

   /**
   * This method initializes jContentPane
   *
   * @return javax.swing.JPanel
   */
   private JPanel createContent() {
      if (jContentPane == null) {
         jContentPane = new JPanel();
         jContentPane.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
         JTextField ctrl = factory.getTextField("text");
         JLabel lbl = new JLabel();
         lbl.setText(factory.getLabelText("name"));
         jContentPane.add(lbl, BorderLayout.NORTH);
         jContentPane.add(ctrl, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
      }
      return jContentPane;
   }
}