The Java beans for classes included in the JRE are supplied as part of the Visual Editor for Java. These define the behavior of classes such as javax.swing.JButton or javax.swing.JFrame inside Eclipse. If you want to override these classes, you can create your own BeanInfo classes and add them to the BeanInfo Path. To do this, use the BeanInfo classes page of the project you wish to affect.
The virtual machine that is created for the introspector has its class path set up as follows:
When a Java project is created in Eclipse, it has an entry (which is usually the keyword JRE_LIB) in its Java build path that points to the location of the JRE.
You can change the location of the JRE by opening the class path variables for Eclipse and specifying a new default Java runtime environment. The default runtime environment is always used as the value of the reserved class path variable JRE_LIB. The Java beans supplied with the Visual Editor for Java are included in the introspector's build path only when the JRE_LIB entry is present in the Java build path. If you delete the JRE_LIB entry from the Java build path, then the BeanInfo classes will be not found. Also, most of the custom behavior of the Visual Editor for Java will become lost for the visual Java beans.
To help performance, Eclipse caches the results of performing introspection on Java beans. When details affecting the result of introspection are changed, the cache should be cleared. However, if this does not occur for any reason, you can empty the cache and force reintrospection for a project by closing and reopening the project.
Related concepts
BeanInfo classes and introspection
Related tasks
Specifying the location of BeanInfo classes
Related reference
BeanInfo classes for the Visual Editor for Java