UI Designer demo available at JavaLobby

Thanks for the interesting demo. It shows much faster the features than a
text document can do. Good work!

Tom

This is a great demo!
At the moment I make my first steps with the UI Designer. ;)
Really impressive.

Some issues:
- The grouping of rows/cols seems to be a little buggy...
- Does the UI-Desginer support some sort of "bindings"?


Johannes Schneider


Dmitry Jemerov wrote:

Hello everyone,

A large demo of the Demetra UI Designer is now available on JavaLobby:
http://www.javalobby.org/eps/intellij_ui_designer/

Enjoy, and please send your feedback!

Hello Johannes,

JS> This is a great demo!
JS> At the moment I make my first steps with the UI Designer. ;)
JS> Really impressive.
JS> Some issues:
JS> - The grouping of rows/cols seems to be a little buggy...

Any details?

JS> - Does the UI-Desginer support some sort of "bindings"?

By bindings, do you mean automatically updating model values when the contents
of the UI fields change? There is a Data Binding Wizard, which provides a
very simple but limited way to implement this. As for more advanced support,
we decided not to implement anything in the current version because there's
no established framework for this.

--
Dmitry Jemerov
Software Developer
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"

Dmitry Jemerov wrote:

Hello Johannes,

JS> This is a great demo!
JS> At the moment I make my first steps with the UI Designer. ;)
JS> Really impressive.
JS> Some issues:
JS> - The grouping of rows/cols seems to be a little buggy...

Any details?

It simply doesn't work ;).
- Release the "shift" key before right click --> selection is changed
(but the entry "Group Rows" is still available). I think the selection
shouldn't change on a right click
- FormLayout (JGoodies) + Grouping: The rows between the grouped lines
have the same height as the other.
- At the moment it is also not possible to change the type (related,
unrelated, line spacing...) of a spacing row - at least I don't know how.

Without grouping and specification of row types some of the most
valuable features of FormLayout are not useable.

- Do I have to add the JGoodies libs manually (as mentioned in the
demo)? I did not, but I think it worked anyway.
- Changing the layout manager doesn't work (this is a must).
- The UI Designer feels "slow". I can't describe it better - but if I
select a row it lasts for about half a second until the properties view
is updated.

But keep on working on it. I really, really like it! And I am sure I
will use this thing for production code if some of the issues have been
solved.

JS> - Does the UI-Desginer support some sort of "bindings"?

By bindings, do you mean automatically updating model values when the
contents of the UI fields change? There is a Data Binding Wizard, which
provides a very simple but limited way to implement this. As for more
advanced support, we decided not to implement anything in the current
version because there's no established framework for this.

Well, didn't try that wizard until now. I have made some steps with the
JGoodies bindings - and I like it. But this was just a simple case so I
can't make a final statement about the quality/usability.

At least I think it is important that it is possible to use the most
commen data binding frameworks. Of course it is ok for me to add some
lines of code manually. But I don't want to lose most/some of the
benefits of the UI Designer if I use data bindings.
I can understand your desicion - but nevertheless keep your eyes open
and retain those possibilities.


Johannes Schneider