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SwingLabs SwingX GUI Component Ideas
This page is for discussion on new components to be developed for the SwingX project. Just because they are here on the page doesn't mean they will be developed, or are being developed--that also means you are free to add your own "interesting" ideas about new components.
If you have a component, please add it with a title (proposed name or description), describe it, and give examples of similar components in other frameworks or libraries. A point-by-point description of behavior or layout is appreciated.
Ideas
Font Selection Dialog
Common need in many applications is to change fonts. Basically would like a Swing standard dialog showing a list of all fonts on the user's system. As each is selected in the list, an example sentence (e.g. the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog) is displayed in that font. Spinners, checkboxes and/or combos to select size and style (ital, bold, underlined, etc). Any subsequent typing of text on the screen or in the app would use the selected font. And any text selected when the font was changed would pick up the font chosen. -- scheide
One possible implementation (screenshot) from http://common.L2FProd.com
Print Configuration Dialog
As more Swing components gain printing functionality (and hopefully it becomes easier to add this to apps), will often need to display a printer dialog, letting user choose printer, pages, landscape/portrait mode, copies, etc. Another nice area to have a Swing standard, with customization possible of course. -- scheide
Print Preview Dialog
StatusBar? component
Shape Control
A shape control is a basic shape able to be stretched to different sizes. Have different modes (like oval, rectangle, round-rectangle, etc.) The line mode draws simple lines - from point to point - and can be colored and made different point sizes. -- scheide
GIF Animation Component
The gif animation component may be similar to the image panel but is able to hold animated gifs, like browsers can. Just set the url, resource or path to the gif and it appears, animated. -- scheide
File, Directory and Drive-selection Dialogs
The next 3 dialogs mentioned allow system and network navigation. As may be obvious, the choosers allow you to choose disks/drives on your system or elsewhere on the network, and then a specific file. Think of a file explorer, save and open dialogs, etc. All these would be easier with these components configured out of the box to navigate easily over the users current system setup. -- scheide
Table Navigation Controls
These are first/last/next/prior/refresh controls often shown in a "bar" format, with icons representing the different movements; "VCR Bar". There may need to be two different things: a set of Actions mapped to this navigation, and some common "Bar" formats for the navigators. Should link to DataTable? at least. (idea by scheide, notes by pdoubleya)
Table Manipulation Controls
A set of Actions and associated buttons? Bar? for inserting, deleting, copying whole rows in a DataTable? -- Main.pdoubleya
Outline-style tree control
This would be a JTree set up for easy entry of text in an outline style, like the outline mode in Word. There are examples of this in JOE as well as Huckster. This basically requires a JTree that supports standard outlining actions and key bindings (for moving elements around the tree) as well as long-text entry (multi-line, wrapping) and a decent tree model to pull the text out afterwards--perhaps in OPML format. -- Main.pdoubleya - 06 May 2005
Image Map control
This would function like a JList in that it would fire selection/deselection events of some sort in addition to action events. It should present a picture of some type with one or more 'hot' areas. It should support single or multiple selections, and there should be some type of visible reaction to mouse clicks/selections. A familiar example is the time zone widget that many OS's use to set the time zone of the machine. -- Main.dhall - 11 May 2005
Textfield with history
A textfield which offers completion and remembers previous entries. -- Mail.l2fprod - 22 June 2005
DropDownButton?
a button with an arrow which shows a list of actions when pressed. -- Mail.l2fprod - 22 June 2005
NSBrowser Control
NSBrowser is a Cocoa component on the Mac that looks like multiple JLists side by side which show hierarchical data such as directory listings. I know Mac users would love a Java implementation of this and it is also very useful on other platforms. -- dmouse
Preferences
A framework for Preferences bound with Preferences Pages is missing from Swing. Eclipse provides an excellent framework but is SWT-based. I think this will facilitate life for a lot of Swing rich-client developpers. (See http://flexiprefsj.sourceforge.net for a candidate) -- ejwghinos - Nov. 8, 2005
PickListTextField?
A widget that works like a muti-select list, but it is a text field. User can choose one or more items from a list of pre-defined values ("Selections") by typing them in the text field; assisted by autocomplete. Satisfies many requirements for my applications where an otherwise clunky looking checkable list etc. would be used... Power Users love the speed at entering multiple values with just a few keystrokes. Alternatively, you can click a button next to the picklist field to show a "Shuttle List" (the kind of dialog that has two list boxes for choosing selections from a predefined list.) I will reimplement and give as a candidate soon! (my current one has too many .jar deps).
-- Main.bshannon - 24 May 2007
Event Calendar Control
a control that draws a calendar in which the user can add, move, copy events. Day, Week and Month view. Like google calendar.
--Main.zatalian - 23 Nov 2009
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