What I think would be *really* cool, where if Matisse offered the possiblity to
export the generated layout to XML, and also provided a parser to turn the XML
back into a layout.

To apply the layout on my application I would have to use a 'GroupLayoutParser'
that would parse the XML and ask my application for the components using some
interface.

My application would implement something like:

Interface GroupLayoutComponentSupplier {
  public Component getComponent(String name);
 }

And to populate the GUI I would call something like:

File xmlfile = new File(mylayout.xml);
JPanel panel = GroupLayoutParser.doLayoutPanel(xmlfile, this); // this
instanceof GroupLayoutComponentSupplier

That way I would get rid of all the autogenerated layout code, and be able to
reuse a layout. Maybe I could even allow the users of the application to
rearrange the gui as it no longer affects the code (as long as components are
not added).