Michael Schmidt wrote:
Mr. Armbrust,
Hopefully, this isn't off topic.  Just wondering why SWT instead of swing?
 
Michael Schmidt
I'm pretty sure this is completely off topic, but I'll indulge it -

I've done development using Swing and SWT - and I find SWT's APIs to be much cleaner, intuitive, and easy to use.  Manual GUI development is much quicker with SWT  and results in much less code that is far more readable.  Also, SWT layout managers are _much_ easier to use than the crud that comes with Swing from Sun.

Side note - if you do have to do Swing development, I highly recommend using the JGoodies forms package - it is a layout manager for Swing that is far and away better than trying to do things with Swing layout managers -  http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/forms/index.html
As an example, I rewrote some forms that were 800 lines of code using GridBagLayout into about 150 lines of code using JGoodies.  And the JGoodies code is far more readable.

Back to SWT - Swing still just looks like crud when compared side-by-side with native Windows applications.  Especially in windows XP - Sun still doesn't have the Windows XP Look and Feel implemented properly.  And if a user applies a custom XP skin, then it really looks strange.  The file choosers don't look or work like native Windows XP file choosers.   And when windows "super duper 5.0" comes out next year, I'm sure it will only take sun another 3 years or so to write the new look and Feel.  Meanwhile, your apps just look weird.  SWT Apps _always_ look exactly like the OS look and feel - because it uses the native OS widgets.    You can also embed Swing parts into a SWT application if you need to.

When I write a SWT application, most of my users don't even know it is a java application.  It just looks like a normal "windows" application.  You can also launch SWT apps using Java WebStart, or, if you don't want to use webstart, you combine your app, SWT, and http://jsmooth.sourceforge.net/ and suddenly you have a native windows executable for your users.  All of javas ugly bits are safely hidden away from your end user.

If you want to compare a Swing application (written using JGoodies looks and JGoodies look and feel - which does a better job than Suns look and feel at looking like Windows XP) side by side with a similar SWT application - take a look at these two apps:

(scroll down to the webstart links)
(ps - these apps aren't supposed to be masterpieces of user interface design - they are just utilities for techie types using LexGrid)
http://informatics.mayo.edu/LexGrid/index.php?page=convert
http://informatics.mayo.edu/LexGrid/index.php?page=indexer

Especially pay attention to the speed and appearance of the file choosers (click the "Browse..". button) - to enable the second file chooser in the Indexer Creator app - go to the "Options" menu and choose "Build Normalized Index"

Another awesome gui that is written in SWT (and most end users don't even know its written in Java)
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

And a couple more - to finish with a little bit of relevance to PostgreSQL
A database designer plugin for Eclipse  (which is all written in SWT)  - supports PostgreSQL:
http://www.azzurri.jp/en/software/clay/index.jsp

Another database plugin for Eclipse that lets you work with a PostgreSQL database.
http://quantum.sourceforge.net/screen_shots.html

Dan
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Daniel Armbrust
Biomedical Informatics
Mayo Clinic Rochester
daniel.armbrust(at)mayo.edu
http://informatics.mayo.edu/