B4J Tutorial Internal Visual Designer

Starting from B4J v3.50 the IDE includes a visual designer similar to B4A and B4i designer.
The output of the designer is a bjl file. This file can be loaded to other panes or containers with:

Pane.LoadLayout("LayoutFile")

When the layout parent is resized the layout file will be resized as well based on the layout anchors and designer script.
This happens before the Pane_Resize event is executed.

Note that the anchors feature works with all panes, not just AnchorPane.
It is highly recommended to use anchors. They are simple and powerful.

Menus and context menus are defined in JSON format. See this tutorial for more information: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/designer-menu-items.56602/

It is not possible to convert a FXML layout (scene builder layout) to bjl layout. However you can combine both layouts. For example you can load a bjl layout to a pane previously added by loading a FXML layout.

Thread with several useful questions and answers: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/b4j-3-50-visual-designer-questions.56571/

 

[jinyistudio]

Hi Erel

What's different Internal desinger And Sence builder ? What time could i use internal designer ? What time i must use scence builder ?

 

[LWGShane]

Hi Erel

What's different Internal desinger And Sence builder ? What time could i use internal designer ? What time i must use scence builder ?

Both are separate. They don't rely on each other.

The Internal Designer is like the designers in B4A/B4i
The Scene Builder is a GUI creation tool created by Oracle. (Now maintained by Gluon.)

 

[B4JExplorer]

I see the bjl is in a binary format.

Will the fxml format continue to be supported, in subsequent B4J releases?

 

[Erel]

Scene Builder is still supported. Though new views and features are only added to the internal designer.

Note that you can combine layouts from both types in the same app.