Adding a Bean to the Palette Window

See Also 

You can expand the IDE by adding your own beans to the Palette window for use in visual design. Once the bean is installed, you can select it in the Palette window and add the bean to your forms. You must compile a bean before you can add it to the Palette window. You can add class files (.class) or serialized prototypes (.ser).

If the bean was created outside of the IDE, you must mount its JAR or directory before adding it to the Palette window.

To add a bean from the Filesystems window:

  1. In the Filesystems window, right-click the bean and choose Tools and choose Add to Palette from the contextual menu.
  2. In the Palette Category dialog box, select the name of the Palette window category in which you want the bean to appear. Click OK.

    The new bean appears on the Palette window in the category that you selected.

To add a bean from a JAR file:

  1. Choose Tools and choose Install New JavaBean from the main menu.
  2. In the Install JavaBean dialog box, specify the path and JAR file of your bean and click OK.

    A list appears with available beans.

  3. Select the beans you want and click Install.

    If the beans you expect to see are not displayed, the required attribute Java-Bean: True is missing from the bean's entries in the JAR manifest. See the JavaBeans specification for information on proper packaging of beans. The specification can be found at

    http://java.sun.com/beans/docs/spec.html
  4. In the Palette Category dialog box, select the name of the Palette category in which you want the bean to appear. Click OK.

    The new bean appears on the Palette window in the category that you selected.

Some beans have their own icons. If the bean you add does not have an icon, the IDE assigns a default icon. To see the name of each installed bean in the Palette window, position the pointer over the bean to view the tool tip.

Tip If you change a JavaBeans component that is used in a form that you are developing, those changes are not automatically reflected in the Form Editor. To get those changes to appear in the form, recompile the component. Then reload the form by pressing Ctrl-R in the Form Editor or the Source Editor.

To reload a form, press Ctrl-R in either the Form Editor or the Source Editor.

See Also
Creating a Bean
Mounting a Filesystem
Adding a Component to a Form
Setting a Bean's Icon

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