BeanInfo Editor Dialog Box

The BeanInfo Editor dialog box enables you to edit the elements of a BeanInfo class. To display this dialog box, right-click the Bean Patterns node of the class whose BeanInfo you want to create or update. Choose BeanInfo Editor from the contextual menu.

The Properties node in the left panel contains bean properties that conform to the JavaBeans specification. The properties in the right panel reflect characteristics and settings of objects in the IDE. Thus, in the BeanInfo Editor dialog box, you can set properties of bean properties themselves.

Bean Info Node

When the Bean Info node is selected, the first four properties in the property sheet panel enable you to designate icons for the bean by entering the relative path to and names of graphic files.

The next two properties, Default Property Index and Default Event Index, are the indexes of the default property and event in the PropertyDescriptor and EventSetDescriptor arrays, respectively. Set the value to -1 if there is no default property or event.

For information about these JavaBeans elements, see "BeanInfo" in the API documentation that comes with your Java 2 SDK, or see Sun's web site at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.3/docs/api/java/beans/BeanInfo.html. (Replace 1.3 in the above URL with 1.2 if you are using JDK version 1.2.)

Properties, Event Sources, and Methods Nodes

These nodes have only one property in the property sheet, Get From Introspection, which is set to false by default. If you set the value to true, all information about the bean's properties, events, or methods is taken from when the bean is used, and the generated BeanInfo returns a null value instead of an array of descriptors of properties, event sets, or methods.

If you right-click on any of these nodes, you can choose to include or exclude all of the properties, event sources, or methods from the BeanInfo.

Subnodes of Properties, Event Sources, and Methods

The subnodes represent the bean properties, events, and methods themselves. The most important property for each subnode is Include in BeanInfo, which is set to true by default. If you set this property to false, the JavaBeans property, event, or method is not shown to users or other classes.

When Include in BeanInfo is true, a green square with a white check mark appears next to the subnode. When Include in BeanInfo is false, a red square with a white X appears next to the subnode. Other node icons in the BeanInfo Editor have the same meaning that they do in the Explorer or Object Browser, as described in Node Icons in the Explorer and the Object Browser.

Two properties of each bean property subnode--Expert and Preferred--are used to determine how the bean property is displayed in an IDE. If you reuse the bean in this IDE, these property settings determine how the bean properties are displayed in the Component Inspector as follows:

If you want to set a property in the right panel to the same value for multiple JavaBeans properties, events, or methods, you can use the Shift key to select several nodes and then set the properties for all of them at once.

See also
Generating BeanInfo

Creating a Bean

Component Inspector

Legal Notices