Re: Which UI "engine" to use?

Sounds like you're really looking for a widget library rather than a UI engine. I'd expect Matisse has an API, but haven't looked enough to know how accessible it is. Another possible option is JavaFX; again I haven't really checked into it. The "haven't looked" reasons are because I'm painfully aware of the history of GUI and other code generators, and not too optimistic about them. BTW, there are additional new layouts in JDK 6.

Here's an older article with Swing libraries:

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/hansmuller/archive/2004/10/and_then_there.html


Joe Sam

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Bartell" <albartell@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <java400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 3:26 PM
Subject: Which UI "engine" to use?

So I am about to get into a contract project where I have been tasked to
build a "nice looking" Java desktop application that communicates with the
server. The "nice looking" was referring to a previous project I worked on
with the same customer where we used AWT simply because that is the only
thing supported on the platform we were on (btw, AWT is NOT nice looking
:-))



I have done a very small project with Matisse and a little in Swing
(nothing in SWT). What would others recommend for a direction based on your
experiences? Please note that I am not as much interested in GUI drag and
drop IDE's as I will be drawing the screen dynamically based on what is sent
down from the server. It is more important to have an easy to use object
set and also would be nice to have a solid set of UI components (i.e. one of
the requirements is a menu system).



My current plans are to go with Matisse, but I am willing to be swayed if
others have opines that would warrant a change in direction.



Thoughts?

Aaron Bartell

http://mowyourlawn.com