[platform-swt-dev] A Builder for Eclipse

[Lane Sharman <lane@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

          Greetings,
 
 Bongo, before Eclipse, was the first "widget" oriented GUI builder for Java. 
My company, Open Doors Software, has lovingly guided this project to a product 
status, now named Conga. Conga is a rich builder, scripting, and widget set 
rolled into a single product for rapid skin development on a java desktop. 
It uses only the graphics engine provided within the basic Java runtime. In
that sense, it is a cousin of SWT. It makes no use of Swing or AWT components.
 
 Conga might have a contribution to make to SWT. Fundamentally, its secret 
sauce is its builder which allows a graphics designer to visually lay out 
a UI without code generation and according to a WYSIWIG layout pattern or 
some other layout pattern. Conga's real asset is its Builder. Presentations 
are loaded/saved as optimized, reuseable, persistent streams. Its widget set,
like SWT, is extensible.
 
 I will spare you the details at this point as to why creating a Builder
for SWT would be a really difficult job for me and perhaps it is already
done or being done.  
org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget
 This class is not "Builder-Friendly" to my pattern for creating a Builder. 
In other words, I need more builder-support in this base class.
 
 So, my question is this: is o.e.s.w.Widget frozen? Can its method signatures, 
interfaces implemented, and other behaviors be modified?
 
 I would really like to see Eclipse succeed and to see Eclipse have a great 
GUI builder. Perhaps there is one already ... but I did not see it.
 
 regards,
 
 Lane Sharman
 http://opendoors.com