OOP XMLPanelEdit (Page 2): Java Swing GUI tool / Java Swing GUI builder / Java Swing GUI by XML / XML Editor for Java Swing GUI

XMLPanelEdit consists of Java Swing GUI builder and related classes. This Java Swing GUI tool is the XML editor for XML of Swing GUI. By this XML editor, you can easily define Java Swing GUI in XML.

JPanel on JFrame or JDialog can have any Layout, i.e. FlowLayout, BorderLayout, BoxLayout and GridLayout. So, you can place JButton, JCheckBox, JRadioButton, JLable, JTextField or any other JComponents anywhere within JFrame, JDialog or JPanel. The Java components can be placed on the intermediate Swing containers, such as JTabbedPane, JSplitPane and JScrollPane. For example, JTable, JTree, JTextArea or JTextPane can be placed on JScrollPane. When BorderLayout is specified as the Layout, JToolBar with Actions can be placed on JPanel, and JMenuItems with the same Actions can be embed into JMenu.

You can prepare XML for your Java Swing GUI in as many human languages as you like, i.e. XML for your Java Swing GUI can be written in Japanese Shift_JIS, Chinese BIG5, Chinese GB2312 and Russian KOI8-R. By ResourceBundle read from the property resource file, the XML appropriate for the user's Locale will be selected at runtime. By this way, your Java Swing GUI can be internationalization (i18n) ready.

The abstract Java classes in XMLPanelEdit represent JFrame, JDialog and JPanel. These Java classes parse the XML written by Swing GUI tool and generate your Java Swing GUI. And your Java Swing GUI can access all the JComponents placed on it. For example, ActionListener can be added into JButton on JDialog. Or Actions on JToolBar and their corresponding JMenuItems on JMenu can be enabled/disabled at the same time.

Related Pages:

• Previous Page
• Example 1: Your first Java Swing GUI by XMLPanelEdit
• Example 2: Building JApplet by XMLPanelEdit
• Example 3: Dynamic Swing GUI by XML / GridLayout and BoxLayout
• Tutorial of XMLPanelEdit
• DTD for XML by XMLPanelEdit

About XMLPanelEdit

-- Our Java Swing GUI can alter its representation on the fly!
-- We are not required to know about XML at all!
-- Easy internationalization (i18n)!

With XMLPanelEdit, all we have to do is

1. to define the structure of our Java Swing GUI,
2. to save it as the XML document
3. and to generate our Java Swing GUI based on the XML document within our Java programs.

The procedure 1 and 2 above is achieved by the Class, com.oopreserch.xml.edit.XMLPanelEdit, which acts as the XML editor and the viewer for our XML documents representing our Java Swing GUI.

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As you see in the above picture, it is the easy-to-use XML editor written in Java. The upper half JTree represents the whole structure of our Java Swing GUI and we can edit the properties of the selected element in the lower part of the window. Inserting the child element can be done through clicking the button and selecting the component you wish to add from the dialog shown below.

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Note that only the appropriate Java components will be listed on the dialog, based on the selected element on the upper side JTree. And moreover, our Java Swing GUI can be viewed through the GUIViewDiag of the XML editor.

The 3rd procedure can be done with the Class, com.oopreserch.xml.util.GUIParser_1_0, which offers some simple methods as follows:

    public synchronized void setPanel(org.w3c.dom.Element el,
                                      JComponent panel)

    public JComponent getGUI(String name)

    public Action getAction(String name)
    

/*
 * The child components are added onto 'panel'.
 */ 
 JPanel panel=new JPanel();
 String url="xml/our_gui.xml";
 GUIParser_1_0 gui=new GUIParser_1_0();
 DOMParser parser=new DOMParser();
 ErrorHandler e_diag=new XMLErrorDiag("WatchDog :XML Error");
 try{
  /*
   * Configure the parser
   */
   parser.setFeature(
   "http://xml.org/sax/features/validation",true);
   parser.setFeature(
   "http://apache.org/xml/features/allow-java-encodings",true);
   parser.setErrorHandler(e_diag);
   /*
    * Parse our XML document, "xml/our_gui.xml".
    */
   parser.parse(url);
   /*
    * Get the parsed document object.
    */
   org.w3c.dom.Document doc=parser.getDocument();
   /*
    * Get the 'root' element from
    * the parsed document object.
    */
   org.w3c.dom.Element root=doc.getDocumentElement();
   /*
    * Initialize the child components
    * and place them on to 'panel', the instance of JPanel.
    */
   gui.setPanel(root,panel);
 }
 catch(SAXException ex){
   e_diag.println(ex.toString());
 }
 catch(DOMException ex){
   e_diag.println(ex.toString());
 }
 catch(IOException ex){
   e_diag.println(ex.toString());
 }

    public void setGUI(org.w3c.dom.Element root){
	gui_panel.removeAll();
	gui_panel.setBorder(null);
	gui.setPanel(root,gui_panel);
	gui_panel.validate();

	JButton close_b=(JButton)gui.getGUI("close_b");
	close_b.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
	    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev){
		closeChild();
	    }
	});

But as you notice, the 3rd procedure requires us to know how to parse the XML document. But don't worry. The following steps may always be the same to almost all the programs:

1. Parse the XML document by the parser.
2. Get the parsed document object from the parser.
3. Retrieve the root element from the parsed document object.
4. Placing the child components onto the instance of JPanel by setPanel(org.w3c.dom.Element el, JComponent panel).

• com.oopreserch.xml.util.XMLPanel_1_0
• com.oopreserch.xml.util.XMLFrame_1_0
• com.oopreserch.xml.util.XMLDialog_1_0

• public void iniParts()

• public void invokeAction(ToolBarEvent tbe)

1. Read the property resource file for ResourceBundle.
2. Get the URL of the XML document from ResourceBundle.
3. Parse the XML document by the parser.
4. Get the parsed document object from the parser.
5. Retrieve the root element from the parsed document object.
6. Placing the child Java components onto JPanel, JFrame or JDialog.

import com.oopreserch.xml.util.XMLFrame_1_0;

public class SubclassFrame extends XMLFrame_1_0{

    public SubclassFrame(){
	super(true);
	readXML();
	String title=res.getString("title");
	setTitle(title);
	iniParts();
    }

    public void iniParts(){
    	JButton beep=(JButton)gui.getGUI("button");
	beep.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
	    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev){
		System.getToolkit.beep();
	    }
	});
    }
    
}    

For details about property resource file and ResourceBundle, see the related section of JavaTutorial.

The property resource file for each Locale must specify the URL for XML to be read, which means the different XML can be read based on the Locale of the runtime environment. For example, SubclassName_fr.properties may contain the following lines:

• xml_url=xml/SubclassPanelForFrench.xml

	String text_1=res.getString("text_1");
	button_1.setText(text_1);
	String text_2=res.getString("text_2");
	button_2.setText(text_2);
	String text_3=res.getString("text_3");
	button_3.setText(text_3);
	String text_4=res.getString("text_4");
	button_4.setText(text_4);
	String text_5=res.getString("text_5");
	button_5.setText(text_5);

Benefits of XMLPanelEdit

With XMLPanelEdit:

• we can move the GUI-related part of our source code into the XML document. This makes it possible that we can concentrate on designing how our Class should work, without bothering about how it will be represented on the screen, and we can modify our GUI without touching any part of our source code.
• we can edit our XML documents which represent our Java Swing GUIs quickly by the easy-to-use XML editor. And, by extending the well-defined abstract Classes, Java Swing GUI can easily be generated from those XML documents. While XMLPanelEdit is based on XML technology, we are not required to know about XML at all.
• our Java Swing GUI can alter its representation on the fly.
• internationalization (i18n) is easily achieved. We are no longer need to rely wholly on ResourceBundlethe from the property resource file.

Example

At glance, XMLPanelEdit seems to be somewhat complicated tool and API. But, who in the world develops the tool or API to make things difficult? And, in fact, you can easily develop the attractive Swing based application by XMLPanelEdit. There are some examples listed below:

• Example 1: Your first Java Swing GUI by XMLPanelEdit
• Example 2: Building JApplet by XMLPanelEdit
• Example 3: Dynamic Swing GUI by XML / GridLayout and BoxLayout

Documentation

For details about OOP XMLPanelEdit, please read through:

• Tutorial of XMLPanelEdit

• Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing
• Laying Out Components Within a Container

Latest version: 2.1

The latest version of XMLPanelEdit is 2.1. The earlier version depends on Apache Xerces, but it is no longer required. Instead, XMLPanelEdit Version 2.0 (and later) depends on JAXP that is shipped with JDK 1.4.

The distribution file of your application developed by XMLPanelEdit Version 2.0 (and later) can be much smaller in its size now. But, at the same time, it can work only on JRE 1.4 or later. If you need to make your applications compatible also with JDK 1.3, the earlier version of XMLPanelEdit will be required. In this case, please feel free to contact us.

Download

This API is now a part of Bento framework. There are the better documentations and source code examples on the web site for Bento framework. There, you will also find the link to download the entire framework or each API in it.

• Bento framework home page

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