Development notes

User interface

Options

Pure Java

• Swing

  • Pros: Pure Java, very widely used, mature
  • Cons: Often looks clunky and dated
  • See also: Miglayout (layout engine), Seaglass (look and feel), Nimbus (look and feel), Web (look and feel), Advice #1,

• JavaFX

  • Pros: Pure Java, more lightweight than Swing, can be made look a lot nicer than Swing, can be stylized using CSS - better for designers, the future of Java GUIs(?)
  • Cons: Still very young and not as mature as Swing, additional requirements on JRE, still proprietary
  • Cons: The word on the street is that JavaFX has failed to gain market penetration
  • Cons: I've heard there is no Linux support, this is fairly fatal if true

• Apache Pivot

  • Pros: Looks good, may not require web browser
  • Cons: Relatively obscure

Native

• QT

  • Pros: Looks good, uses native widgets, Bitcoin client uses it
  • Cons: Requires non-Java dependencies, seriously complicating build and deployment

• SWT

  • Pros: Looks fairly good, uses native widgets
  • Cons: Requires non-Java dependencies, seriously complicating build and deployment
  • See also:
    • JFace

Web-browser based

• GWT

  • Pros: Looks good
  • Cons: Complicated build process, requires web browser

• Vaadin (based on GWT)

  • Pros: Looks good, simpler build process than GWT (I think)
  • Cons: requires web browser, relatively obscure