Sometimes you need additional methods in your UI factory, e.g., create custom controls or preconfigure existing controls.

The UI factory is one of the first classes that is instantiated from a launcher. If you need a custom factory, use an application parameter to configure it.

A custom factory:

CustomSwingFactory.java

package apps.firstapp;
 
import javax.rad.genui.UIImage;
import javax.rad.ui.IAlignmentConstants;
import javax.rad.ui.component.IButton;
 
import com.sibvisions.rad.ui.swing.impl.SwingFactory;
 
public class CustomSwingFactory extends SwingFactory
{
   public IButton createButton()
   {
      IButton button = super.createButton();
 
      button.setBackground(null);
      button.setHorizontalAlignment(IAlignmentConstants.ALIGN_LEFT);
      button.setImage(UIImage.getImage(UIImage.OK_SMALL));
      button.setBorderOnMouseEntered(true);
 
      return button;
   }
}

Our factory extends the default SwingFactory and overwrites createButton. All created buttons have a default icon, no border, and the text is left aligned.

Now we configure our custom factory via command-line:

java -cp... apps.firstapp.FirstApplication "" Launcher.uifactory=apps.firstapp.CustomSwingFactory

The second parameter defines a config file, but we don't use one. It is also possible to put the factory parameter in a config file together with other parameters. All configuration options are described in this article.

A preview of an application with our custom factory: