Properties Element

The Properties element can include a list of Property elements that define miscellaneous values for a component, such as default text related to a component that will appear in the UI design. Property element definitions are represented in the editable properties that appear in the UI Designer. For example, the following definitions in a .properties file will appear in the Properties tab of the UI Designer when declared in the component definition file. For the VerticalLabel example, the friendlyName definition is declared in the <component> element to display the component name in the palette and outline view.

Definitions in .properties file:

text=label text
lineWidth=line width

Declarations in component definition file:

<properties>
  <property name="text" type="localizedString" default="Vertigo"/>
  <property name="lineWidth" type="integer" default="1" minValue="0" maxValue="5"/>
</properties>

Represented in UI Designer as shown in Figure 1:

Component Properties

Figure 1. Component Properties

Components also inherit the properties of their base components, and can have properties added dynamically at runtime by using the <extensionProperties> element.