Java Swing or SWT: easy way to build a desktop UI "wizard" -- suggestions?

I'm an experienced Java programmer. Used to do a lot of Swing by hand with Eclipse, but been mostly into web stuff for the past couple years.

I have to build a desktop UI, a kind of wizard-y thing, choosing items from lists, typing in fi开发者_如何学Celds, next...next...next... that sort of thing.

Before I jump into building it by hand with Swing, I'm wondering if there's been any major developments in the Java world with regards to desktop UIs. Is there something I should look at, maybe a drag-and-drop UI builder, or some kind of framework, that will make it easier?

Any advice is useful, thanks! Rob

See WindowBuilder. It can build Swing or SWT GUI. WindowBuilder used to be a very profitable product of a company called Instantiations. Then Google bought the company and donated WindowBuilder to OSS community. It is now an eclipse.org project with many of the original developers contributing to it.

NetBeans has a really powerful and easy-to-use Swing GUI builder that comes with it.

Another option is to use the IWizard framework in Eclipse RCP, which works pretty well and is built for exactly what you're trying to do. I'd recommend coding it by hand if you choose this option, as window builder probably won't make your life easier in the long run. Of course, if you're a lot more comfortable with Swing already, you could just stick to that.

I would suggest sticking to hand coding with Swing. The NetBeans editor has improved in the last couple of years, but still generates code that is not easily read by humans or easily modified by hand.

There are some third party libraries that do have some wizard like components that you might be able to make use of.

Take a look at Windowbuilder Pro. You can create GUIs in both Swing and SWT. And GWT, if you want to.