Common Component Properties - Sun Java Studio Creator 2

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A property determines how a component looks and behaves; for example, a button has a color property. Properties can be set in the Properties window, in the Java source code, or in the JSP source code as described in Setting Component Properties.

You can change a component's properties by selecting that component and then editing the property in the Properties window. Some common properties shared by components include the following:

id. The internal name of the component. The IDE assigns a default id to each component when you place it on the page (for example, button1), but you can rename a component at any time by using the Properties window. Your changes are reflected across the application.
text. Not all components have this proprety, but it is a typical property for components that display text, like the Text field component. This property can be used both to display a text value and, for input components, to pick up the value that a user enters.
style. A list of cascading style sheet (CSS) declarations separated by semicolons. These declarations are passed through to the HTML code in the style attribute for that specific HTML tag. You use the Style Editor to define the values for this property.
styleClass. The name of a CSS style class, for use with CSS definitions stored in the <head> of the page or in an external style sheet.
converter/validator. Converters and validators are helper objects that you include with components and that operate on the data contained in those components. For more information, see List of Validators and List of Converters.
title. Extra information about the component. The value of this property is passed through to the web browser as the title attribute in the HTML tag. Some browsers render the title as a tool tip.

Components that render HTML text have an escape property. For example, Static Text or the text part of components like Label and Hyperlink have an escape property. This property, if checked, converts <, >, and & characters in the input to the HTML entities <, >, and &.

Many components have JavaScript-related event properties that enable you to develop client-side scripts for your components. These properties are listed under the JavaScript category in the Properties window and include onclick, onchange, and onmouseover. The values of these properties are the JavaScript code (or other client-side scripting code) for those events.

You can change properties in the IDE when you design your pages, or you can query or change the values of any component property in the Java event handlers for your components as your web application runs.

See Also: About Components; Using Cascading Style Sheets; Component Tasks: Quick Reference; Properties Window