As part of the teiJournal project, I needed to write a simple text-transformer that would turn CSS rulesets into XSLT attribute-sets (documented on that blog). I decided to do this in Java to get more practice with basic apps, and take advantage of the opportunity to abstract more of the code I learned writing the Apparatus app into general-purpose utility classes.

I created a class called MdhPrefs in ca.uvic.hcmc.utils. The purpose of this class is to save and reload a range of key info for a JFrame descendant, so that the JFrame can initialize an instance of the object when it starts up (after initComponents() is called) and get preferences for a wide range of settings loaded automatically.

How to use it:

1. Create a private variable in the JFrame descendant class:

   private MdhPrefs mdhPrefs;

2. Initialize it after initComponents() is called in the class's constructor:

   mdhPrefs = new MdhPrefs(this);

3. In the JFrame descendant's formWindowClosing event, make a call to save the data:

   mdhPrefs.saveData();

At the moment, this class saves only window size and position, and the position of any splitter bars, but it will be extended to include a lot more information. The load/save code is recursive, so it should catch all components which are descendants of the JFrame.

This kind of reflection looks to be very powerful; it's similar to the code I've written in the past for Delphi, but (so far) a bit cleaner, because the component hierarchies seem more straightforward. A set of classes for translating the interface could be created in the same way.