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Java Forum / General / September 2007Does Eclipse provide a "Visual Studio" for programming GUIs?
My only Java environment so far has been JBuilder (Developer), and I was very satisfied with it. Now I see the writing on the wall and am considering migrating to Eclipse. I just got the Eclipse traditional download plus Turbo JBuilder 2007 and began playing with them. (cost is a consideration). One thing I cannot stand is having to code dialog boxes, buttons, etc. by typing. One of the features that I like best from the non-Eclipse versions of JBuilder is the two-way interaction between drawing and typing source code. I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an essential tool? What alternatives do I have for getting a visual studio in: - Pure (i.e., non Borland) Eclipse - Borlanized Eclispe TIA, -Ramon F Herrera (*) directed to Borland > My only Java environment so far has been JBuilder (Developer), and I > was very satisfied with it. Now I see the writing on the wall and am [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > What alternatives do I have for getting a visual studio in: NetBeans has the Matisse GUI builder. www.netbeans.org > - Borlanized Eclispe What's that?  SignatureLew > > My only Java environment so far has been JBuilder (Developer), and I > > was very satisfied with it. Now I see the writing on the wall and am [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > -- > Lew The most recent JBuilder, in all of its versions, is based on Eclipse. The traditional Eclipse is gone. They have a free, entry level version called Turbo, and then some expensive packages. Borland reportedly contributed a lot of source code (don't know exactly what) to Eclipse and have a seat in the board of directors. -Ramon > > My only Java environment so far has been JBuilder (Developer), and I > > was very satisfied with it. Now I see the writing on the wall and am [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > NetBeans has the Matisse GUI builder.www.netbeans.org > > - Borlanized Eclispe > > What's that? The most recent JBuilder, in all of its versions, is based on Eclipse. The traditional JBuilder is gone. They have a free, entry level version called Turbo, and then some expensive packages. Borland reportedly contributed a lot of source code and/or other resources (don't know exactly what) to Eclipse and have a seat in the board of directors. Borland claims that they have been involved in the Eclipse project since day one. -Ramon >> My only Java environment so far has been JBuilder (Developer), and I >> was very satisfied with it. Now I see the writing on the wall and am [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > NetBeans has the Matisse GUI builder. > www.netbeans.org Is that two-way ? >> - Borlanized Eclispe > > What's that? JBuilder 2007 and newer. Arne g source code. > I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. Up until eclipse 3.2, there is the Visual Editor plugin, which has actually a similar "round-trip" behaviour as the JBuilder GUI editor. You can find it under the Callisto updates. Sadly, VE was not ready for the Europa release, so you won't find it in the update list. >What alternatives do I have for getting a visual studio in: > > - Pure (i.e., non Borland) Eclipse You need to add the Visual Editor <http://www.eclipse.org/vep/WebContent/main.php> > I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How > can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an > essential tool? Essential? I would say that is arguable. I keep trying gui builders, and always go back to writing code! > > I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How > > can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an > > essential tool? > Essential? I would say that is arguable. I keep trying gui builders, and > always go back to writing code! Lionel: With all due respect I say that you probably, either: - don't value your time - don't have a sense of aesthetics (again, no offense). Perhaps you haven't tried a well-integrated GUI builder? Ever used JBuilder? In GUIs, sometimes one needs WYSIWYG, i.e., to draw the program, sometimes one needs to type it. JBuilder provides two way interaction. Your drawing generates source code, and vice versa. The two views/perspectives are just tab away from each other. My first large Java project was to duplicate the look and feel of a program called Cyclone(*), which had a nice interface, but crappy internals (was based on Fox Pro, enough said). I wanted to demonstrate the power and capabilities of Java. I wanted to convince myself and others that Java could do (1) exactly the same things as the original non-Java program, and (2) then some. For step (1), I took a bunch of snapshots of all the dialogs, printed them on transparent sheets and placed them on top of my screen, and traced the widgets. How on earth would you do something like that by typing? The question is still valid when designing non-cloned interfaces. Sometimes the dialog is too crowded, and you need to do some careful screen real state management. They say that some 75% of the brain is dedicated to the processing of visual information. Should that resource be neglected? -Ramon (*) I called my version "Cyclone-clone" :-) or "Cyclone, Too" :-) >Perhaps you haven't tried a well-integrated GUI builder? Ever used >JBuilder? In GUIs, sometimes one needs WYSIWYG, i.e., to draw the >program, sometimes one needs to type it. JBuilder provides two way >interaction. Your drawing generates source code, and vice versa. The >two views/perspectives are just tab away from each other. Was the old JBuilder really capable of doing that? Could you give JBuilder any Java program and have it generate the WYSIWYG view or were there constraints on what you could type in the source code tab? You certainly can't do that with Eclipse/VEP or even NetBeans/Matisse. > >Perhaps you haven't tried a well-integrated GUI builder? Ever used > >JBuilder? In GUIs, sometimes one needs WYSIWYG, i.e., to draw the [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > JBuilder any Java program and have it generate the WYSIWYG view or > were there constraints on what you could type in the source code tab? No, the old JBuilder cannot display all possible Java programs. It cannot handle dynamically generated GUIs. The Borland programs have an initialization section -just like we human programmers write- and any code relevant to widgets was interpreted and executed. In any event, all a programmer should care is to have the initial coordinates looking right to the eye, and then the running programs may modify things, if required. In one of my applications, I had a variable number of tabs. The layout of the tab pane contents was identical, with only the number of them being variable -and known at run time. I just created (by drawing) a master, invisible tab, which was later duplicated the desired number of times. -Ramon >>> I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How >>> can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > - don't value your time I do, that's why I start by writing the code myself, rather than using GUI builders that will eventually require me to edit the code anyway, at which time I will have to understand what the GUI builder has done. > - don't have a sense of aesthetics Usability is my top priority. > Perhaps you haven't tried a well-integrated GUI builder? Ever used > JBuilder? Yes. Eventually wanted to edit the code manually, didn't like the crap it generated. GUI builders are find for forms that don't change much, or might have items added to a table or list, but start moving outside of this with more dynamic interfaces and I have found I can write code much faster. Lionel. > ...I start by writing the code myself, rather than using > GUI builders that will eventually require me to edit the code anyway, at > which time I will have to understand what the GUI builder has done. ... > Usability is my top priority. Ramon F Herrera wrote: >> JBuilder? > Yes. Eventually wanted to edit the code manually, didn't like the crap > it generated. > > GUI builders are find for forms that don't change much, or might have > items added to a table or list, but start moving outside of this with > more dynamic interfaces and I have found I can write code much faster. Another factor is that different people work differently. Some find graphic interfaces and tools more efficient; these tools are a good "impedance match" to how their minds hold the gestalt of the GUI. Others have a good grasp of GUI structure through the imperatives of the source. LvdB, would you agree that in your imperative-oriented mindgrok of the GUI you account for many details not always apparent in the GUI builder, such as nuances of border placement, interactions of event listeners and so on? You didn't mention this in detail but I find that the GUI builder approach can fragment the mental model - you have to click on a widget to view a property sheet that you scan for the particular attribute and click thereupon to expand the value. Looking at code the fundamental navigation is up and down in various increments. With only one navigational dimension, the mind has more room to integrate the different things expressed directly in the code, and to correlate factors that a WYSIWYG separates. For example, dynamic interfaces (that you did mention in detail) might relate to hooks for logic beans, but the visual editor shows only the control. You have to click through a few layers to see what logic it hooks in, through more than one navigational dimension. Text seems more "bloated" than images ofttimes, but the human brain evolved to handle linguistic tasks efficiently. The linguistic nature of source code empowers some people, apparent Messr. van den Berg among them. I count myself in this set as well. SignatureLew >> ...I start by writing the code myself, rather than using GUI builders >> that will eventually require me to edit the code anyway, at which time [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > such as nuances of border placement, interactions of event listeners and > so on? I think you pretty much nailed it there. In addition to your remaining comments that I snipped, by editing the source code yourself, it is a design that you've also come up with and so it is familiar and logical (to yourself, and if well designed, to other developers). The GUI builder on the other hand is an additional tool that you need to learn to use and understand so that you think on the same level. Horses for courses I guess :). Lionel. > I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How > can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > - Pure (i.e., non Borland) Eclipse > - Borlanized Eclispe The Eclipse Visual Editor Projects provides a nice two-way editor. Unfortunately, the current version (1.2) does not work with the Europa release. Erik Hecht has managed to put an unofficial port together, however: http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools.ve/msg07071.html > > I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How > > can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > - Pure (i.e., non Borland) Eclipse > > - Borlanized Eclispe > The Eclipse Visual Editor Projects provides a nice two-way editor. > Unfortunately, the current version (1.2) does not work with the Europa > release. This is exactly what I mean by "well integrated" (i.e., an inseparable part of). When I read the Borland announcement about making JBuilder an extension of Eclipse, my first thought was that Borland's expertise in visual tools would be a most welcome contribution to fill the obvious vacuum in the Eclipse otherwise plethora of tools. This Europa incompatibility is something that is bound to repeat itself again and again in future releases. My guess is that Borland does provide some GUI studio, but they want some serious money for it. -Ramon >> I cannot find anywhere a "studio" for drawing GUIs under Eclipse. How >> can something call itself RAD (*) if it doesn't provide such an [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Erik Hecht has managed to put an unofficial port together, however: > http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools.ve/msg07071.html Interesting link. I hope they get VE officially supported in 3.3. I am not much into GUI programming, but from my little eksperimentation VE seems as a very nice tool. Arne > My only Java environment so far has been JBuilder (Developer), and I > was very satisfied with it. Now I see the writing on the wall and am [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > (*) directed to Borland I used one once call jigloo. It worked for me. http://www.cloudgarden.com/jigloo/ Mike Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. Simply choose a title, complete the application form and submit it. Read more ...
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