A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
JComponentBreadboard (http://jcbreadboard.sourceforge.net/) could provide a next generation JOptionPane for JDK 7.

JUSTIFICATION :
JOptionPane.showInputDialog is very useful, but what if the input is a number instead of generic text? The NumericInputDialog example in the JComponentBreadboard User's guide shows how you can create a showInputDialog-like dialog that only accepts a validated numeric text string.

If included in the JDK, user's could "roll their own" JOptionPane-like dialogs without any changes to the core system. Many JOptionPane RFEs would automatically be solved by such a system.

Viewed from a larger perspective, an enhanced JOptionPane would fill a useful niche not well served by the GUI builder approach, just above the current JOptionPane's capabilities.

The complete justification required a look at the many examples in the JComponentBreadboard User's Guide (http://jcbreadboard.sourceforge.net/doc/index.html

John C. Gunther, JComponentBreadboard's author

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Ability to create a wide variety of JOptionPane-like dialogs, with the simple, pure-Java feel of JOptionPane. See JComponentBreadboard User's guide for many examples (http://jcbreadboard.sourceforge.net/doc/index.html)
ACTUAL -
FIxed family of canned dialogs that are great for what they do, but not easily generalized to create the combinatorially large number of variants many user's would prefer.

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Download JComponentBreadboard's source code at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jcbreadboard.


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CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
User's must use a GUI builder, which is overkill. For such simple problems; a "JOptionPane-feel" would be much better.