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java.beans
public interface: PropertyEditor [javadoc | source] A PropertyEditor class provides support for GUIs that want to allow users to edit a property value of a given type.

PropertyEditor supports a variety of different kinds of ways of displaying and updating property values. Most PropertyEditors will only need to support a subset of the different options available in this API.

Simple PropertyEditors may only support the getAsText and setAsText methods and need not support (say) paintValue or getCustomEditor. More complex types may be unable to support getAsText and setAsText but will instead support paintValue and getCustomEditor.

Every propertyEditor must support one or more of the three simple display styles. Thus it can either (1) support isPaintable or (2) both return a non-null String[] from getTags() and return a non-null value from getAsText or (3) simply return a non-null String from getAsText().

Every property editor must support a call on setValue when the argument object is of the type for which this is the corresponding propertyEditor. In addition, each property editor must either support a custom editor, or support setAsText.

Each PropertyEditor should have a null constructor.
Method from java.beans.PropertyEditor Summary:
addPropertyChangeListener,   getAsText,   getCustomEditor,   getJavaInitializationString,   getTags,   getValue,   isPaintable,   paintValue,   removePropertyChangeListener,   setAsText,   setValue,   supportsCustomEditor
Method from java.beans.PropertyEditor Detail:
 public  void addPropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener)
    Adds a listener for the value change.
When the property editor changes its value
it should fire a PropertyChangeEvent 
on all registered PropertyChangeListener s,
specifying the {@code null} value for the property name
and itself as the source.
 public String getAsText()
    Gets the property value as text.
 public Component getCustomEditor()
    A PropertyEditor may choose to make available a full custom Component
that edits its property value.  It is the responsibility of the
PropertyEditor to hook itself up to its editor Component itself and
to report property value changes by firing a PropertyChange event.

    
The higher-level code that calls getCustomEditor may either embed
the Component in some larger property sheet, or it may put it in
its own individual dialog, or ...
 public String getJavaInitializationString()
    Returns a fragment of Java code that can be used to set a property
to match the editors current state. This method is intended
for use when generating Java code to reflect changes made through the
property editor.

    
The code fragment should be context free and must be a legal Java
expression as specified by the JLS.

    
Specifically, if the expression represents a computation then all
classes and static members should be fully qualified. This rule
applies to constructors, static methods and non primitive arguments.

    
Caution should be used when evaluating the expression as it may throw
exceptions. In particular, code generators must ensure that generated
code will compile in the presence of an expression that can throw
checked exceptions.

    
Example results are:

      

    • Primitive expresssion: 2

    • Class constructor: new java.awt.Color(127,127,34)

    • Static field: java.awt.Color.orange

    • Static method: javax.swing.Box.createRigidArea(new
                                  java.awt.Dimension(0, 5))

 public String[] getTags()
    If the property value must be one of a set of known tagged values,
then this method should return an array of the tags.  This can
be used to represent (for example) enum values.  If a PropertyEditor
supports tags, then it should support the use of setAsText with
a tag value as a way of setting the value and the use of getAsText
to identify the current value.
 public Object getValue()
    Gets the property value.
 public boolean isPaintable()
    Determines whether this property editor is paintable.
 public  void paintValue(Graphics gfx,
    Rectangle box)
    Paint a representation of the value into a given area of screen
real estate.  Note that the propertyEditor is responsible for doing
its own clipping so that it fits into the given rectangle.

    
If the PropertyEditor doesn't honor paint requests (see isPaintable)
this method should be a silent noop.

    
The given Graphics object will have the default font, color, etc of
the parent container.  The PropertyEditor may change graphics attributes
such as font and color and doesn't need to restore the old values.
 public  void removePropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener)
    Removes a listener for the value change.
 public  void setAsText(String text) throws IllegalArgumentException
    Set the property value by parsing a given String.  May raise
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException if either the String is
badly formatted or if this kind of property can't be expressed
as text.
 public  void setValue(Object value)
    Set (or change) the object that is to be edited.  Primitive types such
as "int" must be wrapped as the corresponding object type such as
"java.lang.Integer".
 public boolean supportsCustomEditor()
    Determines whether this property editor supports a custom editor.