Netbeans IDE Design Editor disappeared for my project!! Please Help!

[ozzyman]

This is the background info:
- I tried to right-click delete a grey (uneditable) block in the Source Code
- My whole GUI java file got deleted
- I used Local History to recover it
- A bunch of other stuff came up I didn't need so I deleted that
- Everything seemed fine at the time, Ran my program and the GUI loaded fine, all the code was there and in Design View my GUI was intact
- In that bunch of stuff I deleted was an XML file which seemed to be the formatting of the GUI in XML language, i copied it to a text file and saved it just in case before i deleted it. even after I deleted it I could still edit stuff in design view
- Just in case something was still wrong, I restarted netbeans before I did any more hard work to check if the project is still fine

When I re-opened netbeans this time my main Form disappeared! no Design View so I can't edit the GUI! The strange thing is that all the .java files are still there and the source code is still intact, and if i press Run the GUI still loads fine but the big problem is that I Can't Edit the GUI in design view anymore and my project is only half done.

This is so important and i've put a lot of work into this so if anyone knows whats gone wrong and how to help me it would be much appreciated. I really need to get the forms showing up in Inspector again and get Design View showing. It's not a problem with netbeans because if i right-click the project and make a New form the new form shows up with Design View and in Inspector.

Pleeease Help!!

[ozzyman]

Okay I managed to get it back... but it was random so I don't know how.

I did the Local History thing again -> restore deleted files, but there was nothing except a new file i just made + deleted to see if design view was there. Anyway i deleted that file again and suddenly the green Play button came back on my GUI java file, and since then its been all normal, thank God. I think the list needed to be refreshed for some reason.

I have to say my first impression of netbeans was all good but since then its been problem after problem. never had those problems in microsoft VisualBasic

[bolsover]

Never try to delete or edit a gray uneditable block; this should not be possible within netbeans but if you open the .java with some other editor and mess with a gey block, you'll almost certainly screw up the GUI designer.

You should understand that there are actually 2 files associated with a netbeans GUI design: the source .java and a corresponding .form file that holds all the layout hints used by netbeans designer.

From what you say, it seems likely that your .java had got out of sync with the corresponding .form file (these are hidden in netbeans) and when you used local history you got then back in sync.

I use netbeans almost every day for GUI design and other than a handful of times when I've screwed up found it very reliable. But I never mess with the grey code or the .form files.

db