Posted by: Shawn Spiars on May 05, 2008
There are quite a few toolkits available for Java developers. Let me help point you in some directions and maybe save you some research time.
Many of you will be familiar with the Abstract Windows Toolkit (AWT) that is available with every Java Runtime Environment (JRE). AWT is the original Java GUI toolkit developed by Sun Microsystems. AWT is a peer-based toolkit meaning that each AWT control is dependent upon a host operating system control. AWT usage is limited because it was designed to only support controls which are available in all Java host environments. For example, AWT does not support Trees and Tables.
Swing is another Java GUI toolkit developed by Sun Microsystems and was designed to work with AWT and is built on top of AWT components. Unlike AWT, most Swing controls are emulated. This emulation makes user interfaces written in Swing portable across all operating systems and supports Sun’s “write-once, run anywhere” motto. One disadvantage to Swing is that the emulated controls often don’t result in a native looking application. Swing’s answer to this problem is provided by look-and-feel emulators that attempt to change the appearance and behavior of their components to adapt to a particular operation system or theme. Another disadvantage to Swing is that the emulated controls tend to run slower than peer-based controls.
The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is another peer-based GUI toolkit. IBM designed SWT to solve some of the problems that have limited the usage of AWT. SWT provides a different Java implementation for each operating system platform using Java Native Interface (JNI) calls. One disadvantage for SWT is that developers are required to dispose of OS-dependent objects within their application code.
JFace is a GUI library that was developed to compliment SWT and simplify common GUI programming tasks. SWT and JFace libraries are used extensively throughout the Eclipse IDE.
As a Java user interface developer I have used each of these GUI libraries and I find the combination of SWT/JFace my favorite choice because of the native look-and-feel of the components. I also find the SWT and JFace APIs cleaner and easier to develop with than AWT and Swing. My two cents, comments welcome.
In Java GUI Toolkits, Java GUI, java, Abstract Windows Toolkit
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