cry-d/panelmatic

A Java Swing library for making high-quality complex layouts easy. And then some.

PanelMatic

An intuitive library for creating complex Java Swing layouts.

Overview

PanelMatic is a mature Swing helper library, created to allow easy creation of complex, high-quality layouts. A panels can be created using a single expression, whose structure directly relates to the way said panel looks.

PanelMatic It is highly customizable, supports right-to-left layouts, and provides an easy way of adding uniform listeners to panel components. The latter is useful, e.g., when one wants any change in a set of text fields to enable a "save" button.

💡	A PanelMatic intro is available at mbarsinai.com. Many panel examples are available at the Examples directory at the project’s tests.

Sample Layouts (and the code that creates them)

Figure 1. A simple login form

Figure 2. A slightly more complex user profile panel

Figure 3. PanelMatic panel used with Swing’s BorderLayout

Figure 4. Nesting panels by nesting builders

Important Classes

The below diagram suggests which classes are more important for client code, and which could be safely ignored.

Single Expression Panels

The following examples show how PanelMatic’s fluent API allows creation of a panel using a single expression.

System.out.println("A panel with two JLabels would "
				+ "have a preferred height of "
				+ PanelMatic.begin()
					.add( new JLabel("Label 1"))
					.add( new JLabel("Label 2"))
					.get()
					.getPreferredSize().height
			+ " pixels.");

output:

A panel with two JLabels would have a preferred height of 40 pixels.

Using PanelMatic in a Project

From Maven Central

Maven

Add the following to your pom.xml:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>io.codeworth</groupId>
        <artifactId>PanelMatic</artifactId>
        <version>0.9.8</version>
    </dependency>
    ...
</dependencies>

sbt

Add the following to your build.sbt:

libraryDependencies += "io.codeworth" %% "PanelMatic" % "0.9.8"

As a .jar File

• Download from the releases page. PanelMatic does not have any external dependencies.

Change Log

• JavaDocs updated.

• Initial Maven-based release, based on original release (which was based on Ant and subversion, and was managed on Kenai.com).

• Updated in-repo documentation.