How do I start by editing a JFrame on hand and continue the final adjustments through the Netbeans "dashboard"? [closed]

I understand that you intend to create JFrame of zero on the hand and continue editing using the netbeans gui-builder tool, and this may not be as simple as netbeans creates a file .form , with data in xml, where it stores all the necessary configuration for it to render the screen. Creating in the hand, the tool will not know how to render, so it will not open a class you created.

Not to mention that the screen creator has a feature when it comes to creating screens, that is because it uses one of the most complicated layout managers to perform maintenance, which is GroupLayout , and you may want to choose to merge managers or use others that optimize encoding, and the tool will not know how to handle them.

The screen-making tool is a facilitator for those who do not want to waste time creating designer on the "command line", this is quite draining when you have deadlines and a complicated business rule to develop, so you need to decide if either cut off this step and use the tool or if you want to do the manual work.

In the case of window builder , which is the similar but compatible eclipse tool, he can already identify handmade canvases. One against this tool is that it is not as automated as netbeans, it leaves everything else under the control of the programmer.

Still, it may be a good alternative, because this netbeans tool will hold you when you need to maintain screen, because with so much code it creates, it is almost impossible to maintain a more complex interface, and window builder gives you more freedom between programming using the n drop tool and manually manipulating the screen design code, real time, without too much messing up the code and without creating extra files.