Control Hints

Instead of displaying the value from the attribute's heading, such as OrderId, you can replace these with more meaningful labels for the user, such as Order Number.

The Control Hints section of the Edit Attribute dialog provides a centralized location to apply the desired control hint to the chosen data item. For example, you can customize label text and format type for a view object attribute.

Edit Attribute dialog, Control Hints

The control hints mechanism supports these control hint properties that you can customize:

Display Hint: Determines whether the attribute will be displayed or not. In the ADF Swing design-time wizards, you can override this attribute.
Label Text: The text used in prompts or table headers that precede the value of a data item.
Tooltip Text: The text used in tooltips or flyover text. In web applications, it appears as the value of the HTML ALT attribute.
Format Type: Defines the formatter to use when the data item is displayed. Formatters are basically a collection of format masks that you can define in the <JDeveloper_Home>/system n. n. n.../formatinfo.xml file.
Format: The particular format mask used by the selected formatter.
Control Type: The control type used to display the data item in the client UI: Edit makes the control editable, Date displays a calendar picker, and Default is interpreted by the client to select the most appropriate control.
Display Width: Defines the character width of the control that displays the data item.
Display Height: Defines the number of character rows of the control that displays the data item.
Form Type: Determines whether the attribute will be displayed in Detail or Summary mode. Detail mode produces a long form, Summary mode a short one. This property is supported for ADF Swing applications only; it is not available for Business Components web applications.
Field Order: Defines the numeric order in which you want the attribute to render within a category
Category: The identifier to be used by the dynamic rendering user interface to group attributes for display. The user interface will render the attribute with other attributes of the same category. You can use the category hint to aid the user interface to separate a large list of view object attributes into smaller groups related by categories. This control hint will be utilized by any dynamic rendering user interface that displays the attribute.
Auto Submit: Default is false.

After entering a value for Label Text in the Edit Attribute dialog, open the Property Inspector for the attribute you edited. In the Property Inspector, expand UI Hints. You should see the new label text you entered, and any other control hint property you may have customized using the Edit Attribute dialog.

Property Inspector, UI Hints

Note: After adding label text for the view object attributes, you may not see the control hint label text on the Java visual editor immediately. You have to close and reopen the View project, then open Form.java to see the control hint label text you have added.

Java visual editor, Form.java