PropertyPane: ability to see multiple property descriptions

[sjonas]

We make extensive use of PropertyPane, and lately we have received ease of use feedback regarding the Description area at the bottom of the pane.

Our GUI typically doesn't allow much vertical space for the PropertyPane, which leads to two problems. First if the description text is long the Description area can take up most of the available display area. And when the PropertyPane is put into a JPanel we can wind up with two side-by-side vertical scrollbars: one for the PropertyTable and another for the entire pane.

A related issue is that users want to see multiple property descriptions simultaneously, as opposed to having to click each property one-by-one in order to see its description. The use case is that the user is trying to quickly find the relevant property in situations where the name doesn't provide enough of a clue.

One possibility for solving both problems would be creating a 3-column variation of the PropertyTable, where the third column was reserved for the property description. This would solve the layout issues and allow users to see multiple property descriptions. Are there any plans to provide this feature?

[JIDE Support]

You could get the third column by overriding PropertyTableModel with the following code.

Code: Select all

        @Override
        public int getColumnCount() {
            return super.getColumnCount() + 1;
        }

        @Override
        public String getColumnName(int column) {
            if (column == 2) {
                return "description";
            }
            return super.getColumnName(column);
        }

        @Override
        public Object getValueAt(int rowIndex, int columnIndex) {
            if (columnIndex == 2) {
                return getPropertyAt(rowIndex).getDescription();
            }
            return super.getValueAt(rowIndex, columnIndex);
        }


However, the end user would expect the property name could self-explain in most cases. The description should be just descriptive and should be rarely read by the end users.

Plus, as you can see, if the description is quite long, it will also occupy the screen width or height quite many if it is put as the third column.

Thanks,