Class

Class

Edit Class Description

After you have run the Create --> CLASS option the system will alreay show you the class/table you chose in the combo at the top of the CREATE screen. You can override this in the FIND button.

There are two tabs on this screen. The components on the screen that are only relevant to columns become non-editable and those that describe the GUI you want to generate for this table are editable. These are mostly in the "File" tab. JGuiGen comes with a table called userlogdata. This table is used to demonstate features of JGuiGen and to exercise most of the options available in JGuiGen. Often the default values will be fine for generating you GUI.

Sample Screen With The Table Desc Tab Pressed

You fill out the "Description", "Updated by" and "Notes" fields to describe the table. These are on the other tab. You will see them when we look at the Column tab. The following otpions are available.

1. Class Desc Tab - Almost all of the work on describing a class is done here.

2. ComboBox to Select a Table - Not really needed here but you can select one table if you have several classes described to edit one table.

3. Screen Icon - this is the name of GIF file to replace the coffee cup with when the screen is displayed.

4. Help Item - each screen generated will have a help botton (like the one shown above). When a user presses this button the Java Help system displays a screen from the help system. You fill this field with the name of the screen that should be displayed. The default item supplied accesses the help supplied with JGuiGen. The helps supplied describe the standard buttons and their functions (Add,Find, Save, Help, Print, etc.)

5. Screen Number - Part of the "system" demonstrated using the userlogdata table is a system for giving individual users view/add/edit/delete rights for individual screens. If this system is being used you need to indicate which screen (0 - 10) this is. Each user is given specific rights to screen 0, screen 1, etc. Enter a -1 or 999 if this screen should not have rights for individual users.

6. Start w Query - Some SQL tables are too large to show all of the rows at one time in a JTable. You may want the generated screen to start empty with the SQL Query Builder poped up so that users can select a subset of the SQL table rows to view. Indicate if you want his option here.

7. Menu Options

Menus at Top? - Each generated GUI will have a set of menu buttons. These can be at the top of the generated JPanel or at the bottom. Indicate your preference here.

Text in Menus? - You can included words like "Print" or "Save" in the menu buttons or leave them out. Indicate your preference here.

Icons in Menus? - You can include small icons in the menu buttons. Indicate your preference here. (Obviously chosing to have no text and no icons will generate an error.)

8. Allow Query - JGuiGen comes with a simple SQL Where clause query builder. Users can use this to select rows for the JTable at the bottom of the screen. Indicate if there should be a button of the generated screen giving access to this feature. Currently if you have the Query you also have the reportwritier.

9. Basic Actions Allowed

Allow edits - If users cannot edit data in the table being displayed, remove the check from this box.

Allow adds - If users cannot add rows to the table being displayed. remove the check from this box.

Allow Remove - the other way to remove a row is to mark it inActive or Removed. GuiGen generated screen will ignore rows that have been marked inActive or Removed. Indicate if you want this option using the checkbox.

Allow Deletes - There are two ways to remove rows from the SQL table. One actually deletes the rows. If you do not want users to be able to do this remove the check mark from ths box.

10. Add Mask to ToolTips - this is a debugging tool. You can tell JGuiGen to add the formatting masks to any tooltips. Then as you edit the screen you can see what the JFormattedTextFields are using as a mask.

11. Allow Editing Saved SQL Queries - The SQL Where Clause Builder allows users to save where clauses and select them from a list to use again later. An advanced feature is to allow them to edit these queries and create queries that JGuiGen cannot create with the simple query builder. If your users might be malicious this can be a dangerous option. They could user SQL Injection attacks to damage your database. (I will note that even if you disable this feature developers can manually edit a saved query with any of the database managers they commonly use to work with their backend database system.)

12. Inc(lude) Table - Check this box if a JTable should be included at the bottom of the generated screen. There is a checkbox for each column to indicate whether the column should be included in the JTable and the order will be the same one used to order the components on the generated screen. The java file is designed for a developer to edit a couple of lists and change the columns displayed and the order as needed. Users can drag columns to different positions and resize them by dragging the column headers. When the screen is exited these preferences are saved and reused with the user opens the screen again.

Split Screen - when this option is activate it will create a screen with components on the left and the JTable on the right.

13. Number of Row in Scrolling Table - For screens where you have included a scrolling table at the bottom of the screen (option 12 above), you can determine how many rows to include in this table by changing the number in this field.

14. Tabbed Panes -

Use a Tabbed Pane - Check this box if you want your generated screen to have tabs (like this screen - which was generated by JGuiGen.)

Tab Name 1 - the name to be inserted into the first tab.

Tab Name 2 - the name to be inserted into the second tab.

Tab Name 3 - the name to be inserted into the third tab (leave blank if you only want two tabs).

15. Template Dir - The JGuiGen code is written in Java Snippets and then merged into a whole. This is the folder you want containing the code you want to use to generate your application.

Once you have filled in the various options, JGuiGen will know what you want the generated GUI to look like.

You need to press the SAVE button to save these preferences. If you try to leave the screen or change to a column edit without saving your selections, JGuiGen will ask you if you are sure you want to lose your changes.