Perferences or properties editor

Question

I want to build a dynamic editor that will allow users to view and edit properties files (or stored properties of some sort).
So basically, say there is a property file with values like:
param1=RED
param2=John Smith
param3=arial
The editor app would display those properties and values to the user so they could be edited. Additionally I would like to be able to specify meta data for the properties, such as a constrained list of allowable values. If such a list existed for a given propery, then a combobox would be used in the editor instead of textfield. Other meta data might make some propeties not visible to the user, or not editable, or maybe specify other specialized editors like color choosers or file choosers.
Anyway, you get the idea. I don't think that it would be too difficult to build this from scratch using the java.util.Properties class as the base. But it seems plausible that there may already be something in Java that does this or a 3rd party example or tool that does it or something similar (perhaps the Preferences API or the bean api? )
Anyway, I though I would post before I got started just to see if anyone knows of something already out there or a better way to go.
Thanks.
-Craig

Answer 1

XML! if you were to use an XML based file with an associated x-schema (or a dtd at a push) you could deal with a lot of the problems you have outlined. specifying a range of values or an enum style set of values etc.