Gooey Beans Info

Let's get us some simplistic "beans binding" to support the Presentation Model pattern.
We explicitly declare our properties so as to enjoy IDE auto-completion
and refactoring capabilities. "Wa wa wee wa!" Cos string references are fragile
with respect to renaming getters and setters, and so we avoid them, like whatsit,
the plague ;)

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Code Snippet

We implement a POJO Presentation Model
object as follows.

public class PersonModel {    
    private String firstNames;
    private String lastName;
    private String phone;
    private String email;
    private Date birthDate;
    private BigInteger idNumber;
    private BigDecimal creditScore;
    private Integer dependents;
    private PersonTitle title;
    private PersonGender gender;
    private PersonMaritalStatus maritalStatus;
    private Boolean confirmed;
    ...    
    @IntegerRangeValidator(minimum = 0, maximum = 9, inclusive = true)
    public void setDependents(Integer dependents) {
        this.dependents = dependents;
    }
    ...
}

where we have illustrated a validation annotation.
Alternatively we specify the um, properties' properties, including validators,
in an explicit bean info class, as follows.
This is sans magic, quite trivial and quite programmable.
"It's nice, I like. High five!"

public class PersonModelInfo extends QBeanInfo<PersonModel> {
    final QProperty firstNames = createProperty("firstNames");
    final QProperty lastName = createProperty("lastName");
    final QProperty phone = createProperty("phone");
    final QProperty email = createProperty("email");
    final QProperty birthDate = createProperty("birthDate");
    final QProperty idNumber = createProperty("idNumber");
    final QProperty creditScore = createProperty("creditScore");
    final QProperty dependents = createProperty("dependents");
    final QProperty title = createProperty("title");
    final QProperty gender = createProperty("gender");
    final QProperty maritalStatus = createProperty("maritalStatus");
    final QProperty confirmed = createProperty("confirmed");
    
    public PersonModelInfo() {
        super(PersonModel.class);
        birthDate.setFormatPattern("yyyy-MM-dd");        
        birthDate.setPropertyValueType(dateType);
        birthDate.addValidator(new QFutureDateValidator(false));
        email.setPropertyValueType(emailType);
        dependents.addValidator(new QIntegerRangeValidator(0, 9, false));
        title.setPropertyValueType(enumType);
        gender.setPropertyValueType(enumType);
        maritalStatus.setPropertyValueType(enumType);
        confirmed.setPropertyValueType(booleanType);
    }   
}

We use the above info class to refer to our properties in an explicit,
refactorable fashion.
When we refactor our bean ie. rename properties (ie. their getter/setter methods)
then we need to change the property name here, and we're good to go. Cos they're
a pair like Mutt and Jeff.

QProperty stores additional information besides
wrapping the underlying PropertyDescriptor, eg.
formatPattern and propertyValueType
relate to formatting, and also there a list of validators.

Demo

  (PersonInfo, 150k/500k, unsandboxed, Java6)

src="http://weblogs.java.net/blog/evanx/archive/personalInfoForm700.png" width="700" height="338"
src="http://weblogs.java.net/blog/evanx/archive/personalInfoBean.png" width="700" height="337"
src="http://weblogs.java.net/blog/evanx/archive/personInfoDependents.png" width="700" height="330"
-->

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You can refresh the "BeanInfo" tab (and also the "Console" tab) to see that the
values entered into our form are written to our Presentation Model.

src="http://weblogs.java.net/blog/evanx/archive/personInfoDependentsBean.png" width="700" height="330"
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where use formatPattern to override the default formatting for that
propertyValueType (eg. date, timestamp, currency) and propertyType
(eg. Date, Integer et al).