Jigloo Version: 4.6.8 Eclipse versions supported: 3.0 to 4.7 Cloudgarden's Jigloo GUI Builder creates and manages code for all the parts of Swing or SWT GUIs as well as code to handle events, and shows you the GUIs as they are being built. Jigloo parses java class files to construct the form that you use when designing your GUI (round-tripping), so it can work on classes that were generated by other GUI builders or IDEs, or hand-coded classes. It can also convert from a Swing GUI to a SWT GUI and vice-versa. Also, the SWT_AWT class is supported so that SWT controls can be embedded inside Swing components, and vice-versa. Jigloo is straightforward, fast, powerful, easy to use and fully integrated with Eclipse. It can lead to substantial time-savings for GUI development and maintainance tasks.
Jigloo is very fast at parsing the java code and constructing the GUI form. It's advanced parsing capabilities enable it to render even complex hand-generated code correctly, and it allows quick and intuitive navigation between GUI elements in the form and their associated code, allowing quick manual modifications to specific parts of the code.
Jigloo is highly-customizable: the parts of your code which Jigloo will parse can be restricted, and the classes which are instantiated when Jigloo parses your code and constructs the Form editor can be specified using patterns. The code generated by Jigloo can also be customized, and existing code can be re-arranged to follow the preferred style (eg, using getters for GUI elements, or separating elements by blank lines, braces or tagged comments).
Custom classes can be added to forms, and JavaBeans with Customizers and custom properties are supported. In addition, Jigloo supports visual inheritance - it can design classes which extend other custom classes, which may be public, abstract or non-public. Navigation between code and form editors is very easy - with Jigloo highlighting the relevant section of code when the form editor has focus, or the relevant form element when the code editor has focus. Components are added, layouts changed etc, by selecting from a palette, or by options in the right-click context menus. They can be resized and dragged about in the form editor and in the outline view, and their properties, layout constraints and event handlers can be changed easily in a properties editor. Multi-selection of components makes widespread changes easy to perform. Class-changing (eg, from a Composite to a Group, a combo-box to a text field, or to any custom class) can also save design time. The GUI can be "previewed" or run using editor actions. Jigloo version 4 has many new features, including support for the Swing Application Framework (JSR 296), improved support for the Swing GroupLayout (as used by Netbeans Matisse), multiple root elements and "Surround by" actions. Platforms: Windows, Linux (gtk) and Mac OSX. JDK: 1.3, 1.4, 5 or 6 Basic Features:
- Builds complete Java classes for GUIs in SWT or Swing with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor.
- Two-way (or round-trip) java code editing - changes made in the Form Editor are reflected in the code, and changes made to the code are also reflected in the Form Editor.
- Can recognize and manipulate code generated by hand or by IDE (eg, Netbeans, JBuilder, VEP etc).
- Excellent parsing capabilities allow complex hand-generated code to be rendered correctly.
- Supports visual inheritance - can be used to edit classes which extend other custom visual classes.
- Converts between Swing and SWT GUIs (both ways).
- Palette for adding components and setting layouts.
- Easy navigation between source and form editors, with the selection in the form editor following the location of the cursor in the source editor, and the source editor scrolling to the code relevant to the selected element in the form editor.
- Multi-selection of components - for setting of properties, layout parameters, and copy/cut/paste/delete.
- Context-menu options for adding components and setting layouts (use of palette and/or context menu controlled by preferences page).
- Manipulates most properties of the GUI components, such as colors, fonts, images, sizes, borders etc,
- Creates event handlers for any and all of the component's events.
- When creating components, initial text, image and layout properties can be quickly set using a single creation dialog.
- Basic editing commands, copy/cut/paste/delete, as well as "Move up/down", to rearrange components.
- Infinite Undo/Redo capability for all actions (setting of properties, layouts, layout constraints, cut, paste, add, delete and move).
- The GUI editor and Outline view can be used to drag/copy-and-drop components inside and between containers.
- Java code and GUI form viewed in single editor - either a split-pane (horizontal or vertical) or tabbed-pane layout is selectable.
- Generates stub models for certain elements (eg, JTable, JSpinner, JList etc), and can parse models from code.
Code Handling:
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There are many ways to customize the parsing of the Java code.
- Blocks of code which are not directly involved in building the GUI can be hidden from Jigloo by user-customizable comment tags.
- The classes which Jigloo will instantiate while parsing the code can be controlled o�n a fine-grain level.
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The code generated by Jigloo can also be customized:
- It can follow the convention of the existing code (eg, JBuilder code uses getter methods to initialize it's components, and Jigloo can detect and use this format) or force it's own convention.
- It can separate elements with braces, blank lines, or user-defined comments.
- It can apply the current convention to an existing java class (eg, if the class uses getters you can convert it to using blocks)
Layout:
- Handles all Swing and SWT layouts (including GridBagLayout, JGoodies FormLayout, Clearthought's TableLayout, SWT FormLayout and absolute layouts).
- Delphi/Visual Studio layout-manager mode for SWT FormLayout (and Swing AnchorLayout).
- Intuitive methods for changing the grid properties of GridBagLayouts, JGoodies FormLayout, TableLayout (eg, adding, moving, deleting columns/rows etc) and components inside those layouts.
- Snap grid allows components to be located and resized to a uniform 5 to 20 pixel grid.
- Components can be drag-and-dropped (and copy-and-dropped) between containers, re-ordered and resized by mouse-dragging.
Advanced:
- Visual Inheritance is supported - Jigloo can be used to build classes which are extensions of other visual classes.
- Custom classes extending Component (Swing) or Control (SWT) can be added to the GUI.
- SWT_AWT methods supported, so that SWT controls can be inserted into Swing components, Swing components can be inserted into SWT controls.
- Non-visual classes can also be added to the GUI, and their properties edited with the property editor.
- The class of a GUI element can be changed (eg, changing a Composite to a Group, or to a custom class) with a context-menu option.
- Parts of a GUI class can be extracted and saved as a new class.
- Easy access to the Javadoc for Swing and SWT components and layouts
- Ability to preview or run the generated java code from a toolbar button.