Content

Components

Gaia library comes with a few Swing components to support programming. The greatest are described in the separate chapters, here we name the others:

JZebraTable

Expands capacities of javax.swing.JTable component. JZebraTable has the following features:

• each column has a visibility - you can show and hide columns and preserve their order
• right click on the table header invokes a popup menu with names of all columns - user can change visibility of the columns this way
• the table rows can have the alternate background (each even row)
• this component resolves the problem with JTable which becomes uglier with AUTO_RESIZE_OFF
• you should use createScrollPane(JZebraTable) method instead of new JScrollPane (table) to ensure the pretty look of the table

JZebraTree

The JZebraTree expands the capacities of javax.swing.JTree about these features:

• the tree rows can have the alternate background (each even row)
• there are completed methods to expand / collapse all nodes

JComboBoxWithSeparator

This class enhances JComboBox capabilities by drawing separator(s) in popup. You can set with method setSeparatorsAfter indexes of items, after which should be a separator painted. This functionality does not affect a combobox model.

JSection

This component can be used as a section separator in the form. It consists of two components:

• a component to display text title (title component)
• a separator (horizontal line)

This appears as some text (displayed by JLabel) and horizontal line on its right side (displayed by JSeparator). But this component offers the methods to change or customize both sub-components.

EmptyIcon

Represents a square icon having no graphical content.

Intended for use with Action and JMenuItem. Alignment of text is poor when the same menu mixes menu items without an icon with menu items having an icon. In such cases, items without an icon can use an EmptyIcon to take up the proper amount of space, and allow for alignment of all text in the menu.

JButtonPanel

This component solves repeated problem with buttons positioning and displaying. Its features:

• the buttons are layouted side by side
• the buttons can be aligned to the left, right or centered
• all buttons have the same dimension
• it is possible to show line separator above the buttons
• the component should be displayed below the form

JCloseableTabbedPane

This component solves a close-buttons for tabs of the tabbed pane.

From JDK 1.6 you can use any component to paint tab, but this is impossible in version 1.5. This component paints a small close button behind the tab title, so you can use this close-tab feature in version 1.5.

The component is closeable (paints the close button) by default. You can change this by calling setCloseable(boolean) method.

The component notifies about the mouse click on te close button all registered action listeners. You can accomplish also automatic close of the tab after the listeners are notified. Set property autoClose to true via method setAutoClose(boolean).

JLink

A Swing component to display some label and to invoke internet browser for requested URL by clicking on it.