JFormDesigner 3.0 review

JFormDesigner makes Swing GUI design a real pleasure

License: Other/Proprietary License with Free Trial File size: 0K Developer: Karl Tauber

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JFormDesigner makes Swing GUI design a real pleasure. JFormDesigner 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. FormLayout / TableLayout
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. Read More
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. Read More
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). Read More
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. Read More

Requirements:
Java 1.4.2 or later

Limitations:
20-day evaluation

What's New in This Release:
This release introduces plugins for Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, and more than 60 new features and enhancements.
The most notable: a project manager, improved Localization support, the ability to convert IntelliJ IDEA forms, resizing of columns/rows, Java 5 support, an extended Choose Bean dialog, and client properties support.