The Explorer displays all Java files that have GUI forms as form object nodes
(). The Form Editor
recognizes only form objects that were created using the IDE's form templates,
such as Swing and AWT templates. You cannot manipulated other form objects using
the Form Editor.
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The Form Editor may not be available in your version of
the IDE. If it is available, you will see a workspace titled GUI Editing.
You can enable the Form Editor module by choosing Tools
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Each form object node expands to reveal subnodes for each of its classes ()
and interfaces (
).
When you open a file in the Form Editor, a Top Form Component node (
)
appears under the form object node. The Top Form Component node contains nodes for
all of the file's components. Right-click any component's node to manipulate
its appearance and behavior.
You can right-click any form object node to access a contextual menu containing the following commands:
The IDE affixes badge icons to Explorer icons to indicate a particular state of the object. The following table lists the badge icons used by the IDE.
Icon | Description |
---|---|
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The file needs to be compiled. It has not been compiled or the source has changed since the last compilation. |
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The file is a runnable object. |
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The file cannot be parsed. The file might contain an unrecoverable syntactic error or there might have been a problem reading the file. |