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Tim Boudreau has released a new version of the Swing Wizard library (version 0.997) that fixes the WizardException bug reported in JavaWorld's recent Open Source Java Project profile. The article's examples have been reworked to test out the new, improved WizardException. Thanks, Tim, for this helpful fix!
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Building a bevy of beans: Create reusable JavaBeans components
With the basics of beans in the bag, you're now ready to see how easy it is to develop more advanced beans
In this short series, we are examining the development of JavaBeans software components. Ultimately, most beans will be manipulated in a beans development environment; however, we are only concerned here with the source-level aspects of the framework. The advantages of developing JavaBeans -- that is, developing to the JavaBeans specification -- are severalfold, among them:- Beans can be easily manipulated in visual development environments by users who need not be technically skilled in source-level
Java development.
- Because of the standard interface, beans are readily distributable, which allows third-party components to be more easily
integrated into development efforts.
- Developers can easily transfer code that has been developed for one project into a reusable library of components, which can be accessed in future development efforts.
The eye of the storm
In the first part of this series, we developed two simple beans: a non-visual alarm bean and a graphical left-arrow/right-arrow bean. Both were augmented with visual customizer and bean information classes. In the beans we cover this month, we won't be providing customizers; instead, we'll concentrate on using existing beans and components to create bigger, better beans.Prerequisites
As the continuation of a two-part series, I will assume familiarity with the issues discussed in the previous installment,
including the supplementary articles and resources.
The beans
From start to finish of this series, we develop the following beans:
| AlarmBean | 
|
A non-graphical bean that fires off an event after a specified delay. |
| ArrowBean | 
|
A graphical left-arrow/right-arrow bean. |
|
A graphical progress-display bean. |
|
|
A graphical numeric |
|
|
A graphical font-chooser bean. This bean makes use of the NumberFieldBean bean. |
|
|
A graphical font-chooser bean that displays the current font and provides OK/Cancel buttons. This bean makes use of the FontChooserBean bean. |
|
|
A graphical font-chooser bean that pops up the font selector in a separate dialog. This bean makes use of the FontSelectorBean bean. |
We discussed the AlarmBean and ArrowBean beans in detail last month; in this episode, we will discuss the remaining beans in varying levels of detail.
You may be wondering why we're building three font beans. The ultimate goal is simply to produce a font selector bean that pops up a font dialog when the user clicks on a button. This task very naturally divides into the three beans we'll produce: The first is the user interface for the font selection, the second adds dialog controls and a font sample, and the third introduces a button to pop up the dialog and contains the basic dialog-handling code.
Without beans, we would have to develop these items as specialized AWT components or as a single monolithic class; using beans, we can develop the three parts as independent beans that are reusable in their own right.
- Download this article and the complete source code as a gzipped tar file
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-1997/step/jw-09-step.tar.gz - Download this article and the complete source code as a zip file
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-1997/step/jw-09-step.zip - Be sure to read "Double Shot, Half Decaf, Skinny LatteCustomize your Java," the latest installment of the JavaWorld's new JavaBeans column
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-1997/jw-09-beans.html - JavaBeans author Mark Johnson doubled his efforts this month and wrote a companion piece to his new column describing Sun's
bean testing tool, the BeanBox
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-1997/jw-09-beanbox.html - The new Java Foundation Classes (JFC) http://www.javasoft.com/products/jfc
- Download the latest BDK from JavaSoft's JavaBeans Web site http://splash.javasoft.com/beans/
- The JavaBeans specification http://splash.javasoft.com/beans/spec.html
- The "Glasgow" JavaBeans specification http://splash.javasoft.com/beans/glasgow.html
- Late-breaking advice for the JavaBeans developer from the JavaBeans Advisor http://splash.javasoft.com/beans/Advisor.html
- Online training from the Java Developer Connection http://developer.javasoft.com/developer/onlineTraining/
- Read Intermediate & Advanced Java Programming Material by Richard G. Baldwin http://www.phrantic.com/scoop/Java000.htm
- Previous Step by Step articles
- "Building a bevy of beans" -- JavaBeans has transformed Java from a simple language to a powerful RAD platform; learn how you can get the most from this new Java paradigm.
- "Chart your way to custom graph components" -- Learn to build a graph framework and custom graph components.
- " Scale an application from two to three tiers with JDBC" -- Learn how we can use JDBC to convert our Forum server application into a middleware layer.
- "Moving to JDK 1.1Using the delegation event model to create custom AWT components" -- Learn how a move to JDK 1.1 affects the way you create custom components.
- "Creating custom components" -- Learn how easy it is to create specialized components, reuse them, and keep your application-level code cleaner with internal event handling.
- "Write your own threaded discussion forumPart 2" -- Learn how to implement a simple communications protocol to get a forum discussion group up and running.
- "Write your own threaded discussion forumPart 1" -- Use a forum to make your Web site more interactive, provide customer support, and more.
- "Stepping through a site navigator applet" -- Enhance your Web site with a convenient, hierarchical interface.
- "Stepping through an image map applet" -- Spice up any Web site with this reusable Java code.
Free Download - 5 Minute Product Review. When slow equals Off: Manage the complexity of Web applications - Symphoniq
Free Download - 5 Minute Product Review. Realize the benefits of real user monitoring in less than an hour. - Symphoniq