Automatic updating of custom graphical components in Netbeans graphical designer

Question

I am designing some custom graphical components using Netbeans 7.4. I am making some smaller components that combine to make larger custom components. However, when I change one of the bottom-level components, the changes do not propagate up to other elements.

Is there any way to insert a custom component so that changes to it's base percolate to all the instances? Somewhat new to fiddling with Swing, so my apologies if this is a trivial thing.

I have already added them to a custom palette hoping that would do something, but alas to no avail.

Answer 1

The NetBeans GUI designer doesn't support this directly, but you can instantiate your own custom components as often as desired. The key is designing for reuse. I try to follow the Swing separable model architecture, even if there's no need for a custom look & feel.

Edit: I added two instances of NewJPanel to Main like in this example. When I changed the label's text in the designer, it changed in both panels at runtime.

f.setLayout(new GridLayout(0, 1));
f.add(new NewJPanel());
f.add(new NewJPanel());