How it works: the visual editor and Java Beans

A model of live Java beans is maintained by the visual editor, allowing you to see the graphical representation of Java beans that are java.awt.Component subclasses, and to display the values in the Properties view for unset properties.

The visual editor does this by creating a target VM for each instance of the visual editor, where the Java bean classes used by the editor are loaded, instantiated, and sent the get and set methods as required.

Typically, you do not need to be concerned with this VM. However, situations may arise where you need to analyze or debug behavior specific to it. For example, when exceptions are thrown by the Java beans in a target VM, you might need to debug.

Since the target VM is running live code, there is an overhead associated with it in terms of performance and fidelity of the application. If you develop a Java bean that will be executed in the target VM, and you want its behavior in the visual editor environment to be different in a run-time VM, you can query the static method java.beans.Beans.isDesignTime(). This returns the value true for the visual editor's target VM, and false otherwise.

 

Parent topic

About the visual editor for Java