DryDoc is a Doclet that generates BeanInfo classes directly from Javadoc annotations without the need for intermediate Java™ source code. These BeanInfo classes can then be shipped with JavaBeans™ components to provide design time information to builder tools. It does the class file generation using the excellent gnu.bytecode package that is shipped as part of the Kawa Scheme system.
Cuspy developed this tool because we could not find a tool to do this that did not generate intermediate Java™ source files that would then have to be run through javac. Sun appears to have an internal version of such a tool (There are clues at Bug Parade item 4086778 and the proposed tags), but they have not made it publically available.
DryDoc uses the information in the @beaninfo tag as outlined in the proposed tags document and examples in the Swing code. It currently does the description and displayname for the class, properties, and methods, but will be extended to do events.
DryDoc takes no options of its own. Use it like any other Doclet. DryDoc depends on Kawa, so make sure you have that downloaded first. To generate the BeanInfo class file for a Java™ class whose source is contained in the file com/yoyodyne/DeathRay.java, execute javadoc -doclet com.cuspy.drydoc.DryDoc -docletpath drydoc.jar:kawa.jar com/yoyodyne/DeathRay.java. This will result in the creation of com/yoyodyne/DeathRayBeanInfo.class. The generated class file will look for icons that are named the same as the class name with Color or Mono and 16 or 32 and .gif appended. For example, com/yoyodyne/DeathRayBeanInfo.class will look for com/yoyodyne/DeathRayColor16.gif when getIcon is called with ICON_COLOR_16x16.