[news.eclipse.tools.ve] Re: Jlabel border

[Gili Mendel <gmendel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

pierre abel wrote:
> Hi,
> First, congratulations to  VE authors, it's nice and easy to use.

Thanks for the nice words... always nice to get compliments in addition to
requests/suggestions/bugs/problems....;-)


> Now my question:
> Is there a way to remove the JLabel border that is displayed in the 
> editor ?
> I understand that this fake border is displayed to know how many spaces 
> the JLabel uses, but it would be very nice if you can remove it to have 
> a real WYSIWYG view of your component.. Currently I'm using VE to do 
> some high level prototyping and I need a good visual feedback without 
> the need of running the program each time.

That is a good point; we have been struggling with what/when to put borders around things.
We plan to make borders as an option in the future.

The way VE is configured to set a border on a component is via its override files.
e.g. org.eclipse.ve.swt\overrides\org\eclipse\swt\widgets\Label.override

 graphViewClassname="org.eclipse.ve.swt/org.eclipse.ve.internal.swt.ControlGraphicalEditPart:true"

This configures VE to use the ControlGraphicalEditPart (GEF) edit part for a SWT Label.
the ":true" that follows after, is a value that will be passed as an argument to the edit part
(see org.eclipse.core.runtime.IExecutableExtension.setInitializationData() for more details on arguments).
The value is a flag: true place a border, false do not place a border (which is the default).

removing the :true, or making it :false will turn the border off.

Similarly is the case in the org.eclipse.ve.jfc\overrides\java\awt\Label.override file.


> Ps: some feedback from my experience
> 1-> I've got problems installing VE because the JVM that was assigned to 
> my project was 1.3.1 . I've read the requirements (JVM version >1.4.2) 
> but I thought it was only for the JVM that was used by eclipse program...

We have not tested with 1.3.1 based project - its a bug https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=105805
... note that Sun has started the End Of Line (EOL) process for 1.3.1.

> 2--> a minor usability feature: when creating a jlabel, it could be nice 
> to have the jlabel directly in editing text mode (since most of the 
> times, when you create a jlabel, immediately after you set the jlabel's 
> text)

That's a good idea.  It may make sense to make it as an option on the (optional) instance name dialog that comes up on 
the drop.  That way we are not forcing one to enter text after the drop.