Java Swing save and load workspace/settings

Question

I have a Java Swing application that contains a bunch of frames which in turn predominantly contains tables that display large amounts of data. Since it is always a hassle and its time consuming to arrange all windows and tables on startup, I would like to implement 'workspace'-functionality so that the user can save a setup of preference and on startup choose to automatically load the stored workspace to have all windows and tables appear as previously saved. Specifically, the settings that I wish to store in a workspace are:

• Active windows (JFrame) and their sizes and positions on screen
• Table settings, incl selected columns, column order, column width, sorting, filtering

Does anyone know of a smart and easy way to accomplish this without the obvious, and what seems like a very complex and cumbersome, solution of iterating over all open windows and saving each piece of information with the Preferences api? Thanks

Answer 1

In this case, the obvious solution, java.util.prefs.Preferences, is probably the correct one. RCPrefs from this game is a simple example that demonstrates saving a variety of data types, including enum. The exact implementation is highly dependent on the application. While tedious, it needn't be especially complex. For expedience, the example uses static methods; frame and table preferences are probably worth a class each.