I was recently asked whether Metawidget can output JIDE components instead of standard Swing ones. The answer is yes! Metawidget makes it easy to support third-party component libraries. Here's how:
Step 1: Derive your own JideMetawidget
Subclass SwingMetawidget and override its buildActiveWidget method to select JIDE components. For example:
package com.myapp.metawidget.jide;
import static org.metawidget.inspector.InspectionResultConstants.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import org.metawidget.util.ClassUtils;
import com.jidesoft.spinner.DateSpinner;
public class JideMetawidget extends SwingMetawidget {
public JComponent buildActiveWidget(Map<String, String> attributes)
throws Exception {
String type = attributes.get( TYPE );
if ( type != null ) {
Class<?> clazz = ClassUtils.niceForName( type );
// Use JIDE DateSpinner
if (Date.class.isAssignableFrom( clazz )) {
DateSpinner dateSpinner = new DateSpinner();
dateSpinner.setFormat( "dd/MM/yyyy" );
return dateSpinner;
}
}
// Not for JIDE
return super.buildActiveWidget( attributes );
}
}
import static org.metawidget.inspector.InspectionResultConstants.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import org.metawidget.util.ClassUtils;
import com.jidesoft.spinner.DateSpinner;
public class JideMetawidget extends SwingMetawidget {
public JComponent buildActiveWidget(Map<String, String> attributes)
throws Exception {
String type = attributes.get( TYPE );
if ( type != null ) {
Class<?> clazz = ClassUtils.niceForName( type );
// Use JIDE DateSpinner
if (Date.class.isAssignableFrom( clazz )) {
DateSpinner dateSpinner = new DateSpinner();
dateSpinner.setFormat( "dd/MM/yyyy" );
return dateSpinner;
}
}
// Not for JIDE
return super.buildActiveWidget( attributes );
}
}
That's it! You'll get all the other Metawidget benefits (like layouts, Beans Binding, etc.) for free.
Step 2: Use JideMetawidget in your Application
To try it, download the Metawidget source and update the Swing Address Book example's ContactDialog to say...
final SwingMetawidget metawidget = new JideMetawidget();
...(on about line 135). Run the example, double click on Homer Simpson and you'll see the JIDE DateSpinner component used for the 'Date of Birth' field (previously it was just a JTextField, because vanilla Swing doesn't have a Date picker):
Note: JIDE's DateSpinner doesn't support null values, but
in the Address Book example Date is a nullable field. This causes errors if you click on anything other than Homer Simpson. Note that SwingX's JXDatePicker doesn't have this problem.
