Defining a Simple Property Editor
A bean can also provide auxiliary PropertyEditor
classes for use by a beanbox
tool. PropertyEditor
is a flexible
interface that allows a bean to tell a beanbox how to display and edit
the values of certain types of properties.
A beanbox tool always provides simple property editors
for common property types, such as strings, numbers, fonts, and
colors. If your bean has a property of a nonstandard type, however,
you should register a property editor for that type. The easiest way
to “register” a property editor is through a simple naming convention.
If your type is defined by the class X
, the
editor for it should be defined in the class
X
Editor
. Alternatively, you can register a
property editor by calling the PropertyEditorManager.registerEditor( )
method, probably from the constructor of your BeanInfo
class. If you call this method from
the bean itself, the bean then depends on the property editor class,
so the editor has to be bundled with the bean in applications, which
is not desirable. Another way to register a property editor is by
using a PropertyDescriptor
object
in a BeanInfo
class to specify the
PropertyEditor
for a specific
property. The YesNoPanelBeanInfo
class does this for the messageText
property, for example.
The PropertyEditor
interface can seem confusing at first. Its methods allow you to define three techniques for displaying the value of a property and two techniques for allowing the user to edit the value of a property. ...
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