It would be a very helpful feature if Netbeans provided a runtime library that could read in a .form file 
and instantiate a Swing gui frame.  This would be coupled with an optional setting in the visual editor 
to not generate screen layout code in the .java file.  This would allow developers to design a rich UI with 
Matisse having the screen layout definition reside in the .form file with no GUI layout code in the .java 
file.  At runtime, the new runtime library would read in the .form file and instantiate the gui.  
Convenience methods in the runtime library would allow for acquiring typed references to the Swing 
components whenever direct interaction was necessary.  This is an approach that has already been 
accomplished in the commercial tool JFormDesigner.  Here is a link:  http://jformdesigner.com/doc/
help/runtime_library.html

This is a very powerful feature that we have come to enjoy with JFormDesigner.  This enhancement to 
Netbeans would allow us to keep our Netbeans generated java files a lot cleaner since all of the layout 
code would be neatly contained in the .form file.