java GUI builder VE Matisse, Jigloo

Posted by Ali AL Lawati on Jul 19, 2007 in Development, English, Technology | 5 comments

It is crystel clear that any desktop application development lan guage must have a GUI builder these days. There are no more home users who like to write shell or DOS commands to do their work, these days every want wants to do few clicks and find the result. As a software developer to provide such ability to your users you also need to use something similar.

Creating a GUI for you application by writing scripts or Object Oriented code could be fun ( well when I first learned java I found that much fun than how it is done in Visual basic on those days). Any how in production that is not true, because each time you will design a GUI your client will ask some miner changes( for them it is miner) for your it is to re-create the whole design and rewrite the code again and again.

Fortunately the ability to create the GUI visually is possible in Java because of some beautiful open source IDEs. Such as Eclipse and Netbeans. The most popular tools available in such editors are:

• Visual Editor for Eclipse.

• Matisse for Netbeans.

• Jigloo for Eclipse

For me the first GUI builder I knew was netbeans GUI builder I don’t thing it had Matisse that time it was very simple and easy to use but it do not allow you to edit the code it creates !!!! I decided to not use it because of that ( as I said those days I though writing GUI code is fun).

After searching for a good GUI builder that creates the code but in the same time let me edit it I found Visual Editor it was so greate for me that time I loved it by all the means it creates the code ( well it has a style of creating the code ) and then I can re-edit by coding and by designing a s I wish, well it took a while to get used to it but if you get used to deal with it it is a greate tool.

I actually was so happy with VE that I never tried to get back to see what is Matisse ( all of the java world was talking about it that time) but recently when it people started to blog that no one is maintaining VE any more “even eclipse 3.3 came without VE support !!” , in the same time there was netbeans 6.0 M9 beta but it has lots other eclipse abilities that I had get used to it. This time I tried it and I tried Matisse and yes it is a great tool ( it still don’t allow you to edit the code but when you have all that control to do complicated things (VE breakes down if you try to do some complicated things) who needs to re-edit GUI code.

It sound like Matisse really is the ultimate cure to GUI building in Java, but no. if you ever done a real project in Matisse you will find out that it is yet not very stable once you put a button and you want it a certain size (by connecting it to other controls) sometimes it will get bigger to be attached to the end of the frame, and some times after creating you GUI it is impossible to re-arrange the controls again because they like to get longer and be place in any place you don’t want them to be in.

Few days ago I saw Jigloo which is a plug-in for Eclipse it gives me the power of Matisse designing and the ability of VE to re-edit the code. In the same time and most importantly in Jigloo controls really obey your wish about their placement and size unlike matisse.

The problem here is Jigloo is not free to create commercial application. ! L

In the end I find my self without any good GUI builder good enough to fulfill my needs, I want to know about your Idea in this topic !

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