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Closed 11 years ago.
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I'm looking for a good GUI designer for swing in eclipse. My preference is for a free/open-source plugin.
Window Builder Pro is a great GUI Designer for eclipse and is now offered for free by google.
Here is a quite good but old comparison http://wiki.computerwoche.de/doku.php/programmierung/gui-builder_fuer_eclipse
Window Builder Pro is now free at Google Web Toolkit
Look at my plugin for developing swing application. It is as easy as that of netbeans':
http://code.google.com/p/visualswing4eclipse/
'Jigloo' is a very cool GUI designer. It is not free for commercial use however.
It auto-generates code and allows for custom editing of the code it creates.
http://www.cloudgarden.com/jigloo/
Another good GUI designer for Eclipse is Window Builder Pro. Like Jigloo, it's not free for commercial use.
It allows you to design user interfaces for Swing, SWT and even the Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
Visual Editor is a good choice.
It generates very clean code, with no "layout" files beside of your sourcen using a simple but convenient pattern. It's very easy to patch the generated code and directly see the result.
There are some stability problems (some times, the preview window does not refresh anymore...), but nothing that a "clean Project" can't fix...
visualswing4eclipse looks good but the eclipse update URL didn't work for me (I raised ticket 137)
I was only able to install a previous version. Here's a url in case anyone wants it:
http://visualswing4eclipse.googlecode.com/svn-history/r858/trunk/org.dyno.visual.swing.site/site.xml
The plugin actually looks very good.
Old question, but have you checked out JFormDesigner?
GWT Designer is very good and allows for rapid development of GWT websites. (http://www.instantiations.com/gwtdesigner/)
I use GWTDesigner http://www.instantiations.com/gwtdesigner/ which is not free but works well. Best of all, their customer support is top notch - very responsive.
well check out the eclipse distro easyeclipse at EasyEclipse. it has Visual editor project already added as a plugin, so no hassles of eclipse version compatibility.Plus the eclipse help section has a tutorial on VE.
It's not free or open source. But you can give Intellij Idea's SWING GUI designer a try.
Related
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Closed 11 years ago.
I have to create a desktop application in java. I have experience in working with eclipse IDE for web development. Now for Desktop development whether i have to stick with eclipse or Netbeans.
Then, they are telling Eclipse RCP and Netbeans RCP, i heard only swing, Which framework can I use for desktop development.
Thanks.
In my experience, Eclipse is a perfectly cromulent IDE for desktop applications.
Is there any feature in particular you think you'll be missing which could be worth the inconvenience of re-training yourself with a different environment?
Both Eclipse and Netbeans provide services to utilize and design Swing components. Swing is the general window toolkit for Java. Netbeans and Eclipse are IDEs. If you have experience with Eclipse, then use Eclipse as it will be easier for you.
If you need to design a user interface, which is what I think you are trying to get at, then something like Visual Swing Designer might help.
Window Builder from google is the best plugin I have ever seen for ui design.
Personally I use netbeans for swing because its just how I learned.
You can take this chance to learn something new or stay with what you are formiliar with. Only you can make that choice though.
Take into account things like deadlines etc.
Personally I believe Swing would be the best option to go when you plan to develop desktop apps with java. When It come to IDE, as since eclipse is you are used to, better stick to that, for design swing interfaces you can use, some third party plugin of your choice. Number of designers available can be found here,
Best GUI designer for eclipse?
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Closed 12 years ago.
I've been creating Java programs in a text editor for more than a year and now I want to switch to any IDE for creating Java applications. May I know which IDE should I use first? Eclipse or NetBeans? Which is more preferable for a starter?
I've also done a little work in Visual Studio for creating C# applications. Will working on any IDE gonna be helpful for me?
I've always liked NetBeans for it's simplicity, however I use Eclipse as it has an official plugin for Android, provided by Google. Eclipse is very good but also somewhat complicated - I've used it for years and probably don't know what 60% of the settings or features even do.
So stick to NetBeans, unless you're doing Android development.
Eclipse is definitely closer to the text editor environment you're used to, while NetBeans is more geared towards interface development.
A stock installation of Eclipse is extremely lightweight relative to NetBeans. NetBeans is probably closer to Visual Studio. It depends on what kind of environment you prefer to work in.
If you enjoyed and preferred text editor coding, I'd go with Eclipse. If you preferred Visual Studio-style environments, I'd go with NetBeans.
If your computer is old, I'd go with Eclipse as well.
Eclipse is heavily developed by third parties (google, adobe), netBeans by oracle, so while doing some job with java i felt netBeans to be more "native" for java. Although i do most of the programming in other languages so i use eclipse, since you can bend it to any direction you want.
So, all in all, if you're planing just program in java and have done something with visual studio - use netbeans
When I was learning Java they had us using jGRASP, then had us using Netbeans. Netbeans and Eclipse are very similar if you are just starting.
This is the IDE I use http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/
Netbeans is more to Visual Studio, if you are working on GUI app or Jasper reports, Netbeans is also your choice. In all other cases - Eclipse. Eclipse has much more plug-ins, integrated with server-side environment and easier customizable
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Closed 10 years ago.
I mostly use Eclipse but have mentionned Netbeans on my cv. Are there any good concise and up-to-date tutorials apart from the official ones that could bring me up to speed on how to use the IDE efficiently (shortcuts, debugging, views ...)? This excludes programming tutorials as I don't really need them unless there's a special manipulation involved.
Please take a look at this cheatsheet and this cheatsheet
From within NetBeans, go to Help -> Keyboard shortcuts card to see all the main shortcuts.
In the same menu, you have a link to the Help, which contains good explanation for how to use the debugger.
There's also the online help link, with links to many tutorials, including video ones.
Also, most of the content of Pro NetBeans IDE 6 can be viewed online in Google Books.
It might be a good idea to specify that your question relates to the Netbeans IDE, as opposed to the Netbeans Platform. The latter is the rich client platform on which the IDE is built (analogous to Eclipse RCP).
The official NetBeans page really is the best place to find NetBeans information; I found it the most helpful when I was learning the platform/ide. Aside from that, however, there are a lot of great articles about Netbeans and it's ecosystem in the NetBeans Zone at Dzone.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24065387/DZone-Refcardz-14-NetBeans-Java-Editor-6-8
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Closed 11 years ago.
What is the best and powerful tool for building swing interface?
What tool do you use for swing? Why?
NetBeans Matisse (comes bundled with NetBeans) is good and powerful.
This eclipse plugin seems fresh as well, but I haven't tried it.
Eclipse is my IDE of choice. You can download Eclipse Visual Editor Project(VEP) from here. take a look at this tutorial.
The Eclipse Visual Editor project is a
vendor-neutral, open development
platform supplying frameworks for
creating GUI builders, and exemplary,
extensible tool implementations for
Swing/JFC and SWT/RCP.
if you want some compression between Eclipse's VEP and NetBeans' Matisse, take a look at this and this.
Netbeans comes with a nice GUI builder, look here: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/tools/nb_guibuilder/
Netbeans is the best tool till date!
The Netbeans builder can be quite nice, but it does build a lot of code for some simple tasks. So over time I have gone back to coding by hand, it can save you a lot of time in the long run!
Look at these:
http://www.instantiations.com/windowbuilder/
I have written a Qt-style wrapper around GridBagLayout and I handcode my GUIs using it.
Visual GUI builders certainly provide more flexibility but that comes at the cost of reduced readability of the code. However I do use NetBeans Matisse when I have some quick and dirty job at hand. ;)
Anyway...
If you are interested in handcoding GUIs at all, then you might also like to have a look at MigLayout. I have never tried it though.
I suggest you using JBuilder ....
JFormDesigner is a nice visual designer. It supports lots of open source and built-in swing Layout, it has a plugin support for Eclipse,IntelliJ and also can be used external designer.I have used it as an IntelliJ plugin in a multi-year big swing project with no problem.
I prefer coding by hand with GridBagLayout, but if I had to use a GUI-Builder I would use NetBeans.
After using NetBeans and the Eclipse plugin, I'd go with NetBeans.
Abeille Forms is pretty good. It's based on JGoodies FormLayout. With Abeille you can layout your components visuals and access and/or replace the component with a richer component at runtime.
https://abeille.dev.java.net/
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Closed 9 years ago.
I am a beginner. I am using Aptana Studio for PHP. Today, I also downloaded Eclipse. I notice most of the features and workings are similar. It seems one is built on the code-base of the other.
If so, what was the need for two similar Open Source IDEs on Java?
Aptana is built on Eclipse.
Eclipse is a general-purpose/Java-focused editor, whilst Aptana offers additional features which are targeted specifically at web development.
There are also other Eclipse plugins that also focus on web development, including the Web Tools Project from the Eclipse team.
Some people like Aptana, finding it a convenient mix of relevant tools. Others find Aptana too intrusive, and prefer to individually select their own plugins for JavaScript, CSS, XML, and so on.
what was the need for two similar
Open Source IDEs on Java.
Variety is the spice of life. There are plenty of other IDEs aside from just these two, and the same situation applies to most software, and tools/technologies in general.
Generally, different tools don't have the same focuses, and therefore provide varying benefits for different users.
This is especially true in the Open Source world, where users can easily customise and re-release products to work in the way they want.
You might wonder why the developers of Aptana built a "new" IDE based on Eclipse rather than simply working on Eclipse plugins.
The reason for this is that there used to be a paid-for Pro version of Aptana. This no longer exists however; you can get all the Aptana features now in the free Community Edition.
If you are searching for an free / open source IDE for PHP development i suggest Eclipse. If you can give some money to some company i suggest you give a try PHP Designer. PHP Designer supports as you guess PHP and debugging, also javascript framework like jQuery.
I have been using Aptana Studio 3 myself and I have to say that I like it so far. Which is odd because after using the IDEs I have used in the past I always ended up back with a text editor to write my code in.
I was curious about Eclipse as well and that is why I ended up at your question. I watched the Eclipse demo at the Eclipse site and I think I'll be sticking with Aptana. Just because it does appear to look and function very similar and I have decided that I do like Aptana. I was just searching to see if that was a certain feature or improvement Eclipse could offer.