Best way to create a network GUI for a router?

Question

I have a router which shows its neighbor routers on the CLI. I am thinking of using this info and creating a GUI out of it which would display a network with nodes and links between them. And some info alongside the node to display IP/hostname etc. My first goal is to get this running. Once I have this, I want to be able to add a node to the network diagram and trigger pushing CLI commands to the router to setup this network in the back end.

I am sure there are many ways of doing this but I need the fastest way(hack-ish works too). I was thinking of a JAVA GUI with Expect in the background doing the telnet to the router for getting the information from the router. I am somewhat new to using the Java GUI components. I have used the Java swing components for creating forms etc. but don't know how to draw a network topology using Java. would appreciate any help here.. Also, any IDEs/tools that could make the job easier are welcome (like Netbeans makes Designing forms with Java Swing stupid easy)

Also, feel free to suggest a different language/design if that is faster..

Thanks !

Answer 1

Java's swing is easy to learn, so if you're new to interface design that's a good place to start.

However, since this appears to be a network application, have you considered using web technologies to design your UI instead? Javascript along with a little HTML and CSS can also do the trick.

Answer 2

How about looking into how ArgoUML deals with diagram creation? Or even using NetBeans as a platform for the program?