[Java] GUI Editor?
 

I know I could have asked this in java.sun.com's forum but users in the forum are famous for slamming newbies down.

In one of my course material, it speaks of java GUI editors that are similar to Visual Basic but I can't find anything like that. I have found some simple GUI editors but were extremely hard to work with.

Does anybody have any recommendation of applications that has Java GUI editor?

Thx

I use JCreator when i do any java programming, i find its good enough for my kneads.

BTW, i used to visit the the java.sun.com forums a lot and the basic answer i always saw to this question (after they laid their smack down about using text editors to learn the language properly) is that there are a huge number of free graphical java editors available so just take your pick. Most of them just sit on top of whatever Java DK you already have.

Try searching for the popular java development stuff on download.com or tucows, that might work.

Eclipse
 

Eclipse is probably the best of the free Java IDEs. However, Eclipse itself doesn't include a gui drawing tool, but there are a couple of plugins to do that. I'm not sure about the state of those. Most of the folks I know using Eclipse are doing servlet/ejb stuff, and don't mess with guis.

i'm taking java classes at appalachian state right now, there's a program called BlueJ that's free, just google it. i'll warn you, it's VERY basic, and pretty limited, but it'll get what you need done

How basic and how limited?

it's designed for users who are completely new to programming and the java environment. it has many hand-holding features that an even mediocre coder wouldn't need, but it is extremely easy to create, manage, and manipulate objects.

*edit* http://www.bluej.org

There is a visual editor for Eclipse at http://www.eclipse.org/vep/ that has been released. There are a couple other Eclipse packages that you need to download and install as well, EMF and GEF that have their own download pages linked from the visual editor page . If you follow the link to the M2 build near the top of the page at the URL I provided you will see the details of what you need to download. Be sure to download the levels matching your level of Eclipse.

I'm running Eclipse 3.0.0 on Linux with an Athlon 3200+ XP and the editor does seem a little sluggish. Filling in all the properties using the properties editors for each object gets rather tedious, but all GUI editors I've seen seem to suffer from that problem.

There's a few articles about Eclipse, including a basic GUI editor tutorial in the Oct 2004 Dr. Dobbs.

I recommend IntelliJ by IDEA.
The GUI designer is pretty straight forward and comes with tutorials. Looks very similar to Borlands JBuilder with a few less features.

The one drawback is that it does cost, but if you can get a trial/demo version, you will see where the money has gone.

I've been demo'ing the Swing builder by instantiations.

http://www.instantiations.com/swing-...er/default.htm

It is hands down the best GUI editor for Java I've ever seen. (I've tried most of the freeware/shareware ones out there.) It's free for 14-days, then after that you can buy it or continue to use it for free, however with a loss of several features and functionality. There is a list of the features it hacks off after 14 days, and it's a pretty hefty list of missing stuff.

I'm seriously considering dropping the $99 for a personal license. It's a really awesome tool IMO. (After months of trying to teach myself raw GUI code.)

Thanks to everybody's suggestions, I've went with Eclipse and installed the VE. Took me awhile to figure out why VE wouldn't run with Eclipse's 3.0.

VE pretty much does what I've been looking for.

Swing Builder looks excellent too but I since I'm just a mere student and can't afford to shell out $99 bucks for a license...

Just avoid the POS known as JGrasp.

Eclipse and JCreator are both nice. Eclipse is by far the more advanced, though.

Hey... wtf did you do to get VE to work in Eclipse 3.0? I've been struggling with it for 3 days now and no luck! I'd like to compare it against swing builder before I shell out the $$ for a license....

so what did you have to do to get it to work?

You needed to download V2.02 of Eclipse. Somehow, VE doesn't like Eclipse v3.0

Uhhh. hmm. Odd.

I know there are different versions of VE, one for Eclipse 2.0 and the other for Eclipse 3.0. Are you sure you didn't download the VE for 2.0?

I'll do a little more digging and see if I can come up with something.

Thanks for the info though...this is good to know. At least now I have a lead to go off of!

I downloaded the one for build 2.1.2 as on this page http://download.eclipse.org/tools/ve...712/index.html

The page above is VE version 0.5.0 which the site says it's the latest build. Under requirements, it says you need eclipse 2.1.2. At first, I downloaded 3.0 but when I realized that VE 0.5.0 didn't like Eclipse 3.0, I downlaoded the 2.1.2 and it worked just fine

Ah. my mistake.

Looks like you do what I do. download and install first...then RTFM when it doesn't work! lol

Thanks for pointing that out to me! :thumbsup:

I have Eclipse 3.0 installed on my Linux partition. I downlloaded the M2 build by following the M2 link at the top of the page at http://www.eclipse.org/vep/ . I also installed the matching GEF and EMF iages before installing VEP. Once I did this and restarted Eclipse, it worked fine. I had some initial confusion since I just started the editor without reading any docs. My only problem was not being able to find the palette wth the swing classes, since it was tucked into the right hand edge of the editor window. Once I figured taht out, everything was fine, although sluggish.

hmm. I'd done that as well. I wonder why mine won't show in 3.0. I've got it working in 2.1.2, but not in 3. I guess I upzip everything all over again and start from scratch. I like that the VE is free, so I'd like to get it to work in 3.0.

THanks for the tips 'zilla.