hello,

applets are supposed to be cross platform.
swt is not, it will need compiled binaries depending on platform.
and the java plugin with browser is not always as friendly
as the main java jre when installing extensions.

but webstart is made for that,
you can even specify what binary files must be given to the client
depending on platform.

but swt is not compiled for every platform/window manager,
and you client will have a lot of files to download.

paul.