Adding Custom Components and Windows

You can add your own custom windows and components to the layout (without having to add them to a palette):

To add a custom component with Generic Component:

  1. Click on Generic Component in the Additional palette.
  2. Click in the cell where you want to place the component.
  3. Open the attribute editor by clicking on its button in the main toolbar.
  4. Use the class attribute to specify your custom component by its full package and class name. By default, the class attribute of Generic Component contains java.awt.Button, the standard AWT button object.


    The component must have a null constructor, and it must be a subclass of java.awt.Component.

  5. Enter a unique component ID in the name box.

Using Generic Component does not integrate your component into the GUI builder component palette.

To add a custom window to the layout:

  1. Choose GUI -> Add New Window to open the New Window dialog box.
  2. Choose Generic Window from the list.
  3. Click Create.
  4. Select Generic Window in the mode list (next to the component palette) to open the attribute editor.
  5. Use the class attribute to specify your custom window by its full package and class name.


    By default, the Generic Window class attribute contains sunsoft.jws.visual.rt.awt.RootFrame. Your custom window must be a subclass of sunsoft.jws.visual.rt.awt.RootFrame or sunsoft.jws.visual.rt.awt.RootDialog

See Defining Attributes for information on defining attributes for custom shadows or groups.

See also:

Importing Components
Generating Java Source Code
Adding Operations to Components
What Is a Component Operation?
GUI Builder Runtime Classes
GUI Builder Palette

Visual Java GUI Builder API Documentation
Visual Java GUI Builder Runtime Packages
Class Hierarchy
Index of All Fields and Methods