Launching the Visual Editor for Java

The Visual Editor for Java allows you to create and modify application GUIs by manipulating beans in a WYSIWYG editor. The Visual Editor provides both a design and a source view of each class. You can make changes in either one of these views; all changes update both views and are incrementally saved.

Prerequisite: Create a Java project or a project with a Java nature in which to store the class.

The Visual Editor requires either the JRE_LIB variable or the default Java JRE container to be set on a project class path in order to work properly. These are the default entries Eclipse provides for a Java project.

To open an existing class in the Visual Editor:

  1. In a view such as the Package Explorer view, right-click the .java source file for the class that you want to edit.
  2. Select Open With > Visual Editor from the pop-up menu.

To create a new class in the Visual Editor:

  1. Create your class: File > New > Other > Visual Class. There are also specific visual wizards for certain classes, such as JFrame, which can be reached from File > New > Other.. Then, expand Java on the window. Or, on the toolbar, you can use the drop-down arrow on the New Class Wizard button in the Java Editor section.
  2. Specify the information for the class in the Java Class wizard, then click Finish. The class opens in the Visual editor.

Tips:

Related concepts
Visual Editor for Java

Related tasks
Composing classes visually
Customizing the appearance of the Visual Editor

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