General class and setting properties vs specific inner class

Question

This is a general question for discussion. I am curious to know how people differentiate between instantiating a standard class and making property adjustments within a method versus defining a new inner class with the property adjustments defined within.
For example, when laying out a screen do you:
- instantiate all the objects, set properties, and define the layout all within a method
- create an inner class that defines the details of the layout (may reference other inner classes if complex) that is then just instantiated within a method
- use some combination of the two depending on size and complexity.
- use some other strategy
Obviously, by breaking the work up into smaller classes you are simplifying the structure since each class is taking on less responsibility, as well as hiding the details of the implementaion from higher level classes. On the other hand, if you are just instantiating an object and making some SET calls is creating an inner class overkill.
Is there a general consensus for an approach? I am curious to hear the approach of others.

Answer 1

it's depends on your design..
usually, if the application is simple and is not expected to be maintain (update..etc..) than I just have all the building of the gui within the same class (usually..the main class that extends JFrame).
if the application follows the MVC pattern, than I would have a seperate class that build the GUI for a particular View. I would create another class to handle the ActionEvent, and other event (Controller)
I rarely use inner class...and only use them to implements the Listerner interface (but only for simple application)..