Re: Java GUI

On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:34:09 -0700, David Segall <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Is there a good program for visually designing a Java GUI?

The GUI builder in the open source Netbeans IDE
<http://www.netbeans.org/> is better than any other one I have used
and much better than the ones available in other Java IDEs.

There is a good reason for this. Because of the close ties between
Netbeans and Sun, Netbeans were able to introduce a new Swing layout
manager that is designed to work with a GUI builder. I have seen
complaints that GroupLayout is more difficult to program than other
layout managers if you _don't_ use the GUI designer.

Well, the docs _do_ say that GroupLayout is there specifically for the support of the GUI designer. :)

On a related note, after finally getting fed up with hand-coding UIs in Java, I tried out NetBeans and its GUI designer (I'd been using Eclipse on recommendation of a friend). Seems to work pretty well, though there are some clunky places.

One thing I ran into is that they provide this new "application framework" stuff; my impression of it is that it adds a lot of complexity without much benefit. I mean, some of the stock features are useful, but using them involves jumping through too many hoops, and it only took me an hour of fiddling to run into at least one very annoying bug (non-fatal, but definitely UI-breaking).

I found that sticking to just plain old "Java Form" support works much better. I'm writing the GUI pretty much just like I always used to, except now there's a drag-and-drop UI to arrange things, and for many things, a place in the "property inspector" (or whatever they call it) to initialize or otherwise control things.

It might be my imagination, but NetBeans also just seems to be a bit snappier/responsive than Eclipse. Not that NetBeans is my new hands-down favorite -- for example, Eclipse did a much better job of detecting my installed JREs and configuring the workspace/builds for them -- but I've been pleased with it so far.

Pete
.

Relevant Pages

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