Contributors: Erich Schroeter
Java framework for managing preferences for your application.
The JPreferences project is a Java framework using Swing that manages preferences for an application. The framework is based off of the JFace Preferences package architecture.
This project was started because I could not find an equivalent of the JFace Preferences package that uses Swing. I had written an application based on Swing and did not want the SWT dependency.
Examples of how to use the various classes in the library are provided in the examples folder.
A quick summary of the available objects in the library covering their purpose.
A preference page implements the IPreferencePage interface which provides methods for handling what the page should do when the OK, Cancel, or Defaults buttons are clicked. The intention was to leave a preference page interface open enough to let the developer decide what the page needs to do for each action. For example, some pages may not need to actually store any preferences in a preference store, but instead just display information stored elsewhere in the application.
A preference node implements the IPreferenceNode interface which in turn implements the MutatableTreeNode. The preference node is used by a preference manager to manage preference pages. A preference node contains a single preference page which is displayed when the preference node is selected within a JTree.
A preference manager implements the IPreferenceManager interface which provides methods for managing preference nodes. The preference manager holds a reference to the currently displayed preference page along with a list of listeners (who implement the ICurrentPageListener interface) to be called when the current page changes.
A preference store implements the IPreferenceStore interface which provides methods for storing and persisting preferences. The store interface allows preferences to be stored agnostice to how they are persisted. There are two (2) preference store implementations that come with jpreferences.
- Stores preferences in a Java properties format.
- Stores preferences in an XML format following the preference.xsd schema.
The preference dialog brings all the components above together to be presented to the end user.