The first time you sign into developerWorks, a profile is created for you. Select information in your developerWorks profile is displayed to the public, but you may edit the information at any time. Your first name, last name (unless you choose to hide them), and display name will accompany the content that you post.

All information submitted is secure.

The first time you sign in to developerWorks, a profile is created for you, so you need to choose a display name. Your display name accompanies the content you post on developerworks.

Please choose a display name between 3-31 characters. Your display name must be unique in the developerWorks community and should not be your email address for privacy reasons.

All information submitted is secure.

My developerWorks:

My notifications:

Sign out

Select a language:

Get started with Jigloo, a GUI builder for Eclipse

Create a workflow application using an SWT GUI

Michael Galpin, Developer, MichaelDKelly.com

Michael Galpin has been developing Java software professionally since 1998. He currently works for eBay. He holds a degree in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology.

Summary: Jigloo is an Eclipse plug-in that enables you to build sophisticated graphical user interfaces (GUIs) rapidly that run on the Java™ platform. It can be used to build Swing-based applications and Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT)-based applications. It is an easy-to-use visual editor, so you can create the UI for your desktop application quickly. In this tutorial, we build a simple workflow application and use Jigloo to create its UI. Learn how easy it is to get started with Jigloo and to tap into its advanced features, such as visual inheritance. Finally, we test an application and package it for others to use.

Tag this!

Date: 03 Apr 2007
Level: Intermediate

Activity: 24992 views
Comments:

Before you start

This tutorial is intended for Java developers who want to build desktop applications and use the Eclipse plug-in called Jigloo to create the UI for their applications. The sample application makes use of XML, XML Schema, and JAXB, as well as some Java 5 features, such as Annotations and Generics.

About this tutorial

Java is a great platform for building rich desktop applications. When Java debuted in 1995, it shipped with the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT). This was Java's first UI library for building desktop applications. The release of JDK 1.2 in 1998 included Swing, a much-improved toolkit. Since then, there have been many improvements to Swing. It is now a powerful UI library that performs well on many different platforms. SWT is a competing UI toolkit for Java that offers many advantages. Now with Jigloo, you can rapidly build UIs targeting Swing or SWT. You can even build SWT applications that include Swing components, but that's beyond the scope of this tutorial.

In this tutorial, you'll learn about Jigloo by building a simple workflow application. You will use Jigloo, which is an Eclipse plug-in, to create the UI for the application. You will then build and test your application and package it for others to use.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with UI programming concepts like event handlers and data binding is helpful, but not absolutely necessary. Exposure to AWT/Swing or SWT is also helpful, but not a requirement.

System requirements

Eclipse V3.2: Since Jigloo is a plug-in for Eclipse, you need Eclipse, of course. The application will use SWT, and Eclipse also includes the SWT libraries you'll need for that.

Jigloo: Jigloo is a plug-in for Eclipse. In the tutorial, you will see how to install Jigloo directly from Eclipse using Eclipse's powerful update manager.

Java 5+: The application in this tutorial makes use of some Java 5 features, such as Annotations and Generics. Download Java 5 or Java 6.

JAXB V2.0: The application in this tutorial uses XML as a data store and uses JAXB for parsing and serializing XML. If you're using Java 6, JAXB is included and there's nothing to do. If you're using Java 5, you'll need Sun's JAXB 2.0 Reference Implementation (RI).

Comments

Close [x]

Help: Update or add to My dW interests

What's this?

This little timesaver lets you update your My developerWorks profile with just one click! The general subject of this content (AIX and UNIX, Information Management, Lotus, Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere, Java, Linux, Open source, SOA and Web services, Web development, or XML) will be added to the interests section of your profile, if it's not there already. You only need to be logged in to My developerWorks.

And what's the point of adding your interests to your profile? That's how you find other users with the same interests as yours, and see what they're reading and contributing to the community. Your interests also help us recommend relevant developerWorks content to you.

View your My developerWorks profile

Return from help

Close [x]

Help: Remove from My dW interests

What's this?

Removing this interest does not alter your profile, but rather removes this piece of content from a list of all content for which you've indicated interest. In a future enhancement to My developerWorks, you'll be able to see a record of that content.

View your My developerWorks profile

Return from help

static.content.url=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/js/artrating/

SITE_ID=1

Zone=Open source

ArticleID=205247

TutorialTitle=Get started with Jigloo, a GUI builder for Eclipse

publish-date=04032007

author1-email=mike.sr@gmail.com

author1-email-cc=