I've been using the NetBeans GUI builder for a few weeks now.  Although
my experience with VB is limited to a couple of college courses, I'd
say yes, it's as easy to create a UI with the NetBeans GUI builder as
it is in VB, if not a bit easier.  Follow the NetBeans Quickstart GUI
tutorial which only takes about 15 minutes and you'll see how simple it
is.

I assume you are referring to VB6.0 or earlier. The old NetBeans GUI
designer and those that came with most other IDEs have always made it
almost as easy to design a Java GUI as a VB one. One simply had to
choose absolute positioning and avoid the use of a layout manager
which is how VB does it.

The new designer (and layout manager) make it nearly as easy to design
proper resizable forms. You still have to provide hints as to how you
want elements to resize so it can't be as easy. VB also hides the
properties and methods that it deems unnecessary for a VB programmer.
While this makes VB easier than Java it also causes VB programmers to
make Windows system calls to perform tasks that VB won't allow.

   I don't use NetBeans, but I imagine it will never be "as easy" to create
UI in Java as in VB, because Java has to face a lot of problems that VB
doesn't; for example, supporting multiple look-and-feels. A Java application
has to "look right" on Windows, Linux and OSX, something VB doesn't have to
worry about, for example.

   - Oliver

Hello,

julianmino@hotmail.com schrieb:

I use NetBeans for some year's and I can say the new Layout-Manager
(Matisse) is greate. See Feature-List at:
http://www.netbeans.org/products/ide/features.html

For my own I think it is better as VB.

Regards
Michael