Re: Creating a simple visual user interface
JK wrote:
I bothered to even try any such tools, so perhaps the state-of-the-art
has improved dramatically in recent years?
I would have to assume that the state of the art has advanced. I never
used GUI builders in the bad old days, so I can't say how much they have
improved.
GUIs should require no maintenance, imo. They should be thin enough
that they can be tossed out and another quickly built in it's place.
All the real application logic should happen elsewhere, and be "plugged
in" to the GUI (probably via various ActionListeners). Good use of
interfaces here is crucial.
How achievable that would be on a real, large project I can't say.
NetBeans builds "Plain Old Java Objects". They don't require a GUI
builder to maintain. Aside from some tricky use of the LayoutManager,
they're a breeze to maintain by hand. The only disadvantage of the GUI
builder in NetBeans is it won't read arbitrary classes and allow you to
edit them. If you loose the special layout fie it uses ("form", I
think) you can't edit the class source files with the builder any more.
(Hint: make certain the form file is under source code control.)