🚀 go-pugleaf

I've built a number of somewhat complex gui screens for a business
application. The problem is, many of these screens (JPanels) are made up
of rather complex JPanels which sit inside the each screen.

In cases like this, it would be nice to be able to use JBuilder's visual
design tools to design each of the "inner" JPanels as an inner class,
since the inner panels are not reused by any other components in the
application but each sits alone as a meaningful unit. I don't see the
reason to create a bean for each of these panels...what I want is to use
inner classes. The trouble is, JBuilder3's visual design tools will not
display inner classes (even if they have no-arg public constructors and
each have their own jbInit() method). So when I put my composite JPanel
together, I "see" nothing in JBuilder.

As a half-solution to this problem, I have put each "screen" (composite
JPanel) in its own package, and all the JPanels which make up the
corresponding screen in the same package. At least now I can view the
individual JPanels as I design them, and I'm able to preserve some
independence of namespace in between each of the individual panels. I
still can't see the composite JPanel in JBuilder, however.

None of this is a problem when executing using the JDK, incidentally
(I'm using 1.2.2, launching from JBuilder).

So, GUI builders, is my approach a reasonable one? Should I expect
JBuilder to be able to handle inner classes in the manner I'd like in
the near future?

-Charles May


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