JavaBeans: A General Introduction

What is a JavaBean?

Here's a definition from the official JavaBeans API specification:

"A Java Bean is a reusable software component that can be manipulated visually in a builder tool."

A JavaBean is a java class that uses specific naming conventions. These naming conventions are used by visual building environments (like Spin) to obtain information about what the class can do. This process is called introspection. See the Bean Interface section of this manual for more about these naming conventions.

Also, every JavaBean supports persistence, which makes it possible for it to be saved and loaded. To read about this and the other features required of beans, see the page about Bean Requirements.

A bean may optionally be bundled with a set of support classes to provide more detailed information about the bean. These include:

• classes that describe the bean's properties, and
• special editing classes that can be used to customize the bean.

See the Customization section to read about these support classes.

Links to Other References

This document is to help get you started writing beans for Spin. It does not cover everything. If you notice anything that you think should be here but isn't, please contact us at info@zat.com.

For more information on writing JavaBeans, see:

• The javadoc JavaBeans API reference: http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/docs/api/Package-java.beans.html
• Sun's JavaBeans tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/javabeans/index.html
• The JavaBeans API specification: http://java.sun.com/beans/docs/spec.html

For information regarding the Java language itself, see:

• Sun's documentation page: http://java.sun.com/docs/index.html