Libraries for complex settings dialogs (like NetBeans')

Question

I am developing an application that will likely have a very complex set of settings. In the spirit of not re-inventing the wheel, I'd like to use an existing library if there is one.
I like the way the NetBeans handles program settings. Can someone point me to a library that perhaps can build a preference dialog like that from XML or something similar?
Regards,
Dr.E

Answer 1

Yet another opinion: I personally like Java only for server-side development.
OP, our curriculae and goals seem quite similar: I've used (and at work still use) Struts/JPA (OpenJPA), and I have used the technologies you mentioned (dynamic user-defined security model, rich UI with Vaadin, Hibernate, J2EE6 and/or Spring) in newer (private) projects. Here are my thoughts:
- Web Frontend: if by any means you are familiar with Swing and it's component- and event-based programming model - go with Vaadin (or a similar Framework like Echo, wingS etc.) - this thing just rocks. You roll your own reusable (in the sense of "zero copy & paste required") components and assemble them in a view component hierarchy using plain old Java - no proprietary XML syntax, no JavaScript, no fiddling with HTML and all the browser inconsistencies, because one can't say it often enough: no JavaScript ;-) Styling is accomplished with CSS, but you start with a solid basis stylesheet and just tweak it to your needs, I'll never go back.... I've never used JSF, though this seems to be the new "standard", as Struts was before. From my quick evaluation it seemed to be Struts 3.0, so a no-go for me (never again I'll edit a struts-config.xml unless I'm forced to).
- JPA/J2EE vs Hibernate: depends on your experience and needs. I'd go with plain Hibernate, it's just (much) more powerful than JPA (which is an abstraction and therefore always a compromise between different persistence technology vendors).
- Spring vs "plain" J2EE: again, depends on your prior experience/knowledge and needs. Since J2EE5, the "plain" enterprise edition seems to do the job, but I consider both to be mature and powerful enterprise platforms.
Just m2c.