Java User Interface Framework?

Question

I am about to build a UI in Java and I am trying to determine what I should use. I definitely don't want to use vanilla swing.

The one caveat is that it has to be added inside of an existing swing application. I am looking at JavaFX and Groovy Swing Builder. For the former it looks like there is fairly poor support for embedding into swing.

Anyone have another other suggestions?

Answer 1

Have you considered using NetBeans?

http://www.netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html

Answer 2

I'm not quite sure what you're looking for, but SwingX might fit the bill.

Contains extensions to the Swing GUI toolkit, including new and enhanced components that provide functionality commonly required by rich client applications. Highlights include:

• Sorting, filtering, highlighting for tables, trees, and lists
• Find/search
• Auto-completion
• Login/authentication framework
• TreeTable component
• Collapsible panel component
• Date picker component
• Tip-of-the-Day component

(SwingLabs seems to be down at the moment, though.)

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Edit: On second reading, I guess you were actually talking about declarative UI builders? In that case, I'll refer you to another answer of mine in which I recommended javabuilders, a YAML-based Swing UI builder.

Answer 3

The groovy guys are working on griffon: http://groovy.codehaus.org/Griffon.

I believe it is supposed to model a console type GUI like a web UI.

Another possible answer is javafx. Here's link to their hello world app:

http://javafx.com/docs/gettingstarted/javafx/create-first-javafx-app.jsp

Answer 4

I've used JIDE in the past. It's docking framework is pretty awesome.