NetBeans plug-in

This plug-in integrates JFormDesigner into NetBeans.

Benefits

Using this plug-in has following benefits compared to JFormDesigner stand-alone edition:

User interface

The screenshot below shows the NetBeans main window editing a JFormDesigner form.

NetBeans main window

A JFormDesigner editor consists of:

Creating new forms

You can create new forms using NetBeans's New File command. In the category Swing GUI Forms choose JFormDesigner Form and click Next to proceed.

New Form Dialog

Open forms for editing

You can open existing forms the same way as opening any other file in NetBeans. Locate it in NetBeans's Project view and double-click it.

Source / Design

The Source and Design toggle buttons in the editor toolbar enable you to switch from a JFormDesigner form editor to its Java editor and vice versa.

Source / Design

Convert NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA forms

You can convert existing NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA forms to JFormDesigner forms. Right-click on the form file (or any container) and select Tools > Convert to JFormDesigner Form.

Convert forms

When converting an IntelliJ IDEA form, JFormDesigner inserts its own generated GUI code into the existing Java class and removes IntelliJ IDEA's GUI code.

Options

JFormDesigner uses the term "Preferences" instead of NetBeans "Options". The JFormDesigner preferences are fully integrated into the NetBeans options dialog. Select Tools > Options from the menu to open it and then select the "JFormDesigner" page. See Preferences for details.

You can also set project specific options in the NetBeans project dialog. Select File > Project Properties from the menu to open it and then expand the node "JFormDesigner" in the tree. See Preferences for details.

Keyboard shortcuts

You can assign shortcut keys to some JFormDesigner commands in NetBeans keymap options. Select Tools > Options > Keymap to open it. Click on the Category column to sort key bindings by category name and scroll to the JFormDesigner category.

Unsupported features

Following features from other editions are not supported by the NetBeans plug-in: