Opening the Form Editor
To open the Form Editor for existing forms, double-click on the form object in the Explorer or choose Open from its contextual menu.
When a form is opened, the IDE (by default) switches to the GUI Editing workspace, and the following three windows are displayed:
- Form Editor window - the design-time view of the form.
- Editor window - contains the Java source for the form. If the Editor is already open, the form is opened on a new tab within that Editor window.
- Component Inspector - displays the hierarchy of components on the active form, including the layout managers, menus, buttons, and non-visual components such as timers. The current selection of components is highlighted. Tabs on the property sheet in the bottom panel display the general, expert, code generation, and layout properties as well as the events of the selected component. See Property Sheet pane in the Component Inspector.
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If the Explorer is open, a form node (which is given the name of the class followed by the type of form in brackets) will appear in the source file's hierarchy.
If you have closed or minimized one of these windows and need to redisplay it, right-click on the form node in the Explorer or Component Inspector and select Goto Form (for the Form Editor window), Goto Source (Editor window), or Goto Inspector (Component Inspector).
Note: In Forte for Java, Community Edition, forms are stored in the XML format. When opening forms saved with NetBeans Developer 2.0, 2.1, X2 or early betas of 3.0, you will be asked whether you want to convert the form to a new format. If you click No, the form editor will have the same features as in X2 and the saved form will be compatible with X2. However, some of the new features, such as multiple property editors per property and most code generation properties on components, will not be available. If you click Yes, the form will be saved in the new format, and it will not be possible to open it in these versions of NetBeans Developer.
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