The beans palette, located on the left side of the Visual Composition Editor, provides building blocks you can use to construct a program element. It consists of categories in a drop-down list, each one containing groups of beans.
You can add a bean to your program element by first selecting the category, then a bean, and then dropping it on the free-form surface, a container bean, or the beans list.
To add multiple instances of the same bean, enable Sticky by holding Ctrl while selecting the bean. Selecting a new bean or the Selection tool disables Sticky.
The status area displays the name of the selected category and bean.
The beans palette initially contains the following:
You can modify the palette by resizing it, changing the icon size, adding categories, adding separators, adding beans you have constructed yourself or beans supplied by a vendor, or removing separators, categories, or beans. In addition, the Available feature in the category menu button, loads installed features to the workspace. This may include the addition of categories and beans to the palette. Modifying the palette can increase your productivity in the following ways:
When you add a new bean to the palette, the entire visual or nonvisual bean
is represented with the default puzzle icon
unless you designate another icon in the BeanInfo Class. Once you add
beans to the palette, you can place them in the free-form surfaceVisual
Composition Editor in the same way you place beans that VisualAge
provides.
Select
the Selection tool to unload the mouse pointer and return it to
the selection pointer. The loaded mouse pointer appears as a crosshair
and carries a bean that can be added to the free-form surface, the beans list,
or to an existing container bean. When unloaded, the mouse pointer
reverts to an arrow that you use to select and perform actions on
beans. If the mouse pointer is not loaded, this tool is not
enabled..
Select
the Choose Bean tool to retrieve a bean that is not on the palette
and drop it on the beans list, free-form surface, or an existing container
bean.
Managing the Beans Palette
Modify Palette Window
Modify Palette
Selection Tool
Choose Bean Window