Recent Posts by Geertjan Wielenga

This week's Keyboard Shortcut of the Week is an example of how cool things in NetBeans IDE can mean cool things for the NetBeans Platform, which can also mean cool things for applications built atop that platform. The keyboard shortcut in question is... Alt-Shift-D, which you can only make use of if you're using a post-5.5 development build. (Yes, 5.5 hasn't been released yet, but you can already play with the one that'll come after that.) So, what does the shortcut of the...

If you're interested in the sources of the Simpson drag-and-drop application, which uses the Visual Library 2.0 and the Component Palette API, with this result: ...then feel free to download the sources here: org-netbeans-modules-visuallibraryintegrationmodulesample.nbm When you install the module, you'll have a new sample called "Visual Library Integration Module Sample" in the Samples category (the highest level) in the New Project wizard. When you look at the sources, you'll...

I've uploaded an NBM file containing all the Visual Library 2.0 samples into my update center (link to it in the left sidebar and, if you need them, instructions for using it are elsewhere in this blog). When you get to my update center, you will find two modules. One is called "55beta2modulesamples". The other is called "NetBeansVisualLibrarySamples". The latter is the one you want in this case. Without following the Setup Building Environment, you will NOT be able to...

I've converted all the samples I could find in the Visual Library 2.0 sources into NetBeans project samples. There are really a lot of samples, which is fantastic—33 or 34 at last count. Five of them I converted to NetBeans module projects (to show how TopComponents interact with the Visual Library) and all the rest are standard Java projects. This is what you would see if you had all the samples installed: I don't know if or how this module containing all the samples will be...

I wasn't entirely correct a few days ago when I said that the Visual Library 2.0 doesn't let you use Swing components. Even though the widgets that you create (such as icons and labels) are not Swing components, you can still use Swing components in various ways. They're never the central focus of an implementation of the Visual Library 2.0, but they can play good supportive roles. Here, for example, is a JComboBox in action, letting you select a different map: The only...

Where the Visual Library 2.0 really comes into its own is... with maps: The complete map isn't visible in the main area, but the satellite view lets you move around the map very quickly and easily... and it shows you how much more of the map is present behind the scrollbars. Here, you can see Nelson being dragged into the mountains where Barney has already been dropped. (Simpsons trivia: There is strong evidence in at least one of the Simpsons episodes that Barney is Nelson's...

When you are using the Visual Library, you are not using Swing. For example, I've been using a class called GraphScene. In this class, you use lots and lots of functionality provided by the Visual Library for creating widgets, which have nothing to do with Swing components. To give you an idea of what a widget is, here is my "Krusty" IconNodeWidget: IconNodeWidget krusty = new IconNodeWidget(this);krusty.setImage(KRUSTY);krusty.setPreferredLocation(new Point(400, 180));krusty...

When you move a widget or when you connect the widget to another widget, you make use of the same mouse gesture—you click the left mousebutton and then you move the mouse in the direction where you want the widget to move or in the direction where the other widget is, the one to which you want to connect. So, how to enable both actions, despite the fact that their mouse gestures are the same? In the IDE, for example, as in many IDEs or other applications, you've got a...

Creating a satellite view (the small view on the left side of the screenshot below, which always shows the current status of the main view, including movement) in an implementation of the Visual Library is easy. First, look at the screenshot: Then, look at how easy it is to create the above two views, using a NetBeans TopComponent: SimpsonTopComponent simpsonTopComponent = new SimpsonTopComponent(this.createView());simpsonTopComponent.add(this.createSateliteView(),...