adding other layout managers

Hi developers,

we currently use our own xul-like motor in our web start applications and
have made very good experiences with this idea. We use the swing built-in
layout managers and take especially GridBagLayout to its limits. It's hard
to say, but GridBagLayout just can't handle all scenarios we would like to
implement. AND sometimes GridBagLayout is just broken and doesn't do what
the USER wants to. Therefore we were thinking of throwing away our special
case xul motor and go back with simple Java code and _good_ layout managers
like TableLayout [1] and JGoodies Forms [2]. I suppose that everyone is
knowing them ;-). But coding the layout code in Java again is one step back.
Today I found SwixML and I was suppressed by its simplicity on the one hand
and its extensive swing support on the other hand. Furthermore it looked
like it is very easy to extend. So I've downloaded it and...

back to the subject: adding other layout managers

I wanted to use TableLayout manager (in a second step JGoodies Forms), made
some thoughts, looked at the SwixML source code and started hacking. After 2
hours of work I had finished a running _prototype_!

I've encountered ONE problem and that is the reason for writing this post. I
needed to extend the functionality of
org.swixml.converters.ConstraintsConverter.convert(Class class1, Attribute
attribute) - method. But this is impossible because it is used statically!
So in the current source code there is only the possibility to use
BorderLayout and CardLayout.

Couldn't the developer team change the functionality of this class? I need a
mechanism to add my own Constraints-Handler. I suggest something like:

ConstraintsConverter.addConverter(new TableLayoutConverter());

...and then change the method like this:

public static Object convert(Class class1, Attribute attribute) {
  Object obj = null;
  "iterate over converters" {
     obj = converter.convert(class1, attribute);
     if (obj != null) return obj;
  }
  return obj;
}

Because this wasn't possible I just patched the ConstraintsConverter class
so that it can handle TableLayout.


Now This is an example XML. I can post the needed java files if you wish...

<!-- First.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<frame title="TableLayout Demo"
DefaultCloseOperation="JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE">
  <panel layout="TableLayout({p,5,f},{p,5,pref,5,preferred,10,p})">
 <label constraints="0,0,r,c" LabelFor="tf" text="Salutation:"/>
    <textfield constraints="2,0" Columns="20"/>
 <label constraints="0,2,r,c" text="Last Name:"/>
    <textfield constraints="2,2" Columns="20"/>
 <label constraints="0,4,r,c" text="First Name:"/>
    <textfield constraints="2,4" Columns="20"/>
    <button constraints="2,6,r,b" Text="Save"/>
  </panel>
</frame>



[1] http://www.clearthought.info/software/TableLayout/
[2] http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/formsdemo/index.html