Build GUI in swing using XML file

Question

I'm looking for a way to build UI using XML and swing. I have a code in XML and looking for a way to get UI out of it using swing. I tried below Java code but im not sure if this will help me display frame and other components.

Please help.

Below is the XML code which has JFrame and other things I want in my UI. I want to call this file from a java code so that I can display what all I wrote in XML.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<java version="1.8.0_161" class="java.beans.XMLDecoder"> 
 <object class="javax.swing.JFrame"> 
  <void property="size"> 
   <object class="java.awt.Dimension"> 
    <int>208</int> 
    <int>87</int> 
   </object> 
  </void> 
  <void property="contentPane"> 
   <void method="add"> 
    <object id="JLabel0" class="javax.swing.JLabel"> 
     <void property="text"> 
      <string>Hello1</string> 
     </void> 
    </object> 
   </void> 
   <void method="add"> 
    <object id="JButton0" class="javax.swing.JButton"> 
     <string>Hello2</string> 
    </object> 
   </void> 
   <void property="layout"> 
    <object class="java.awt.BorderLayout"> 
     <void method="addLayoutComponent"> 
      <object idref="JButton0"/> 
      <string>South</string> 
     </void> 
     <void method="addLayoutComponent"> 
      <object idref="JLabel0"/> 
      <string>Center</string> 
     </void> 
    </object> 
   </void> 
  </void> 
  <void property="name"> 
   <string>frame0</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="title"> 
   <string>Save/Load View</string> 
  </void> 
  <void property="visible"> 
   <boolean>true</boolean> 
  </void> 
 </object> 
</java>

Below is the Java code:

 import javax.swing.*;
 import java.io.File;
 import org.w3c.dom.Document;
 import org.w3c.dom.*; 
 import java.awt.*;
 import java.awt.event.*;


 import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
 import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
 import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
 import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; 

public class MasterScreen{

public static void main (String argv []){
 try {
 DocumentBuilderFactory docBuilderFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
 DocumentBuilder docBuilder = docBuilderFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
 Document doc = docBuilder.parse (new File("MasterXML.xml"));
 System.out.println("Siri");
 doc.getDocumentElement ().normalize ();
 System.out.println("Siriri");
 }
 catch (SAXParseException err) {
     System.out.println ("** Parsing error" + ", line " + err.getLineNumber () + ", uri " + err.getSystemId ());
     System.out.println(" " + err.getMessage ());

     }catch (SAXException e) {
     Exception x = e.getException ();
     ((x == null) ? e : x).printStackTrace ();

     }catch (Throwable t) {
     t.printStackTrace ();
     }
}
}

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– achAmháin, Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 11:22
Im not able to build a UI in swing using XML. Can you help me out with this? — siri sandela
– siri sandela, Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 11:31

Thomas Fritsch · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-14 23:48:12Z

2

Your XML file was obviously produced from a JFrame object by using java.beans.XMLEncoder.
Therefore, decoding this XML file to produce the original object is very simple. Just use java.beans.XMLDecoder like this:

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        XMLDecoder xmlDecoder = new XMLDecoder(new FileInputStream("MasterXML.xml"));
        Object frame = xmlDecoder.readObject();
        xmlDecoder.close();
    }
}

You don't need to bother with low-level XML-parsing like you did with DocumentBuilder-

When running the above code this JFrame will show up:

edited Mar 14, 2018 at 23:48

answered Mar 14, 2018 at 23:27

Thomas Fritsch

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1 Comment

Thomas Fritsch Over a year ago

@sirisandela Welcome, good to hear this. You may want to accept the answer if it was helpful. See also here.

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