Re: [platform-swt-dev] SWT on top of swing?

[Lane Sharman <lane@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael,

NetAmie is a project on java.net which abstracts out SWT and Swing for 
the application (also AWT, Flash, and Conga and OpenGL). The application 
will not care whether it is Swing or SWT. Therefore, you remove your 
application dependency on the specific tool kit.

You have an interface contract which abstracts out the details of the 
graphics implementation. Think JDO which abstracts out the specific 
persistence store.

The project is https://netamie.dev.java.net/ . Look forward to your 
comments or participation.

Kindest,

Lane



Michael Scharf wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Would it make sense to build a SWT on the "swing platform"?
> What are the reasons not to try to port SWT to swing?
>
> I have asked this question about 2 years ago.
>   http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg03472.html]
>
> I want to restate the question, because swing became faster
> with the newest jdk and there are so many questions and
> requests for SWT-swing interoperability. And it seems
> quite difficult to get a SWT-swing interoperability to
> run on all platforms.
>
> I know that this would undermine the basic SWT design,
>   http://eclipse.org/articles/Article-SWT-Design-1/SWT-Design-1.html
> but I beleive that the widgets and the model provided
> by SWT are valuable even if the implementation below
> is swing (because I think the abstractions that SWT
> provides are better than the swing abstractions).
>
> Under the pressure of SWT, swing has become better
> and more native looking with version 1.4.2. However
> the SWT versus swing devides the java world...
>
> There is an explosion in complexity when adding new
> widgets to SWT (or to enhancing the behavior of existing
> widgets), because this has to be ported to all supported
> platforms.
>
> For example: a scalable (virtual) table is not easy
> to build because this requires knowledge in all
> supported native toolkits.
>   https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=15054
>   https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36226
>
> The nice concept of SWT becomes a nightmare the more
> native platforms are supported. And without an extensive
> hardware and software setup it is not possible to even add
> or modify the simplest widget in a way that works on all
> supported platforms.....
>
> I know that emulation versus native is a religious
> question and I don't want to start a debate on this.
> But sticking with the "native" model: why not using
> swing as "native" platform?
>
> Like on windows where Active-X components can be
> used, on the "swing-platform" swing components
> could be used....
>
>
> Michael


--
Lane Sharman
Just Do IT, Better.
858-755-2868