Re: Suggestions for higher-level Swing frameworks?

Robb wrote:

I need to do some Java GUI work, and it's been a while since I've
worked with Swing. Are there are common frameworks in use yet that
add a higher level of abstraction to it?

While working with teams, I've found these things helpful:
1) the JSR 296 organizes and standardizes a Swing application
2) knowledge about successful desktop patterns.

Google for "JSR 296" to find information about the framework.
Google "Organizing Presentation Logic" for an article by
Martin Fowler that motivates and introduces desktop patterns.
My presentation "Desktop Patterns and Data Binding" applies
these patterns to Swing and has more diagrams than Martin,
see www.jgoodies.com/articles/

Next, choose a L&f, layout manager plus optional visual editor,
data binding and validation strategy. Although attractive at first
sight, I'd not use an automatic data binding system at the beginning.

If you want to learn about Dos and Don'ts for Swing, see
the articles pages for slides with good and bad Swing design.

I remember from a couple of years back, that someone from Germany
(Karsten?) had a pretty library. Is that still around?

I provide a bunch of open source libraries that complement Swing.
These aim to make Java look good and work well, and assist you
in getting good and consistent design at affordable costs.
They are: JGoodies Looks for appearance, JGoodies Forms for layout,
JGoodies Validation for validation and validation result views,
JGoodies Binding for binding domain data to Swing components.
They are here: www.jgoodies.com/downloads/libraries.html

On top of the open source libraries I provide a commercial
framework that addresses the JSR 296 issues, and a bunch
of example applications that demonstrate the patterns mentioned
above, how to tie everything together, and some of my good
practice patterns. That's the JGoodies Swing Suite.

Hope this helps.
-Karsten

.

Relevant Pages

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