Eclipse Visual Editor Project Unites Java GUI Methods

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The Eclipse consortium and open-source development tool project, which was funded with a $40 million grant from IBM two years ago, to create a single, Java-based toolkit framework that would allow other development tools to snap into that framework, has just launched a Visual Editor project that is being spearheaded by David Orme of Advanced Systems Concepts.

The current implementation of the Eclipse tools is based on a visual editor called the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT), which is a means of generation graphics and GUIs for applications that was picked because it was small, simple, and worked regardless of operating system type. According to the members of the Eclipse project, it was hard to produce professional-looking, shrink-wrapped applications using the Swing or Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) components of the Java Foundation Classes within Java. So they adopted SWT. The problem is that a lot of Java developers either use or like Swing or AWT. Some may say they are gluttons for punishment, but you can't argue taste, religion, politics, or application development. In fact, application development is a superset that includes the other three, which makes it very dangerous indeed.

SWT is based on the idea that a common (if somewhat cruder) set of graphical elements that work on all platforms and yield nearly identical GUIs is better than the Swing approach, which links into the graphical capabilities of specific operating systems to make the best screens each operating system can deliver, that look as much alike as possible (but not identical).

IBM has donated a portion of its VisualAge for Java tool to be the beginning code base for the Visual Editor project. Visual Editor for Java, which is now subsumed into IBM's WebSphere Studio development tool, can crank out GUIs based on Swing. Sun Microsystems and a number of other key Java proponents wanted to have Swing support. And now IBM has given them the groundwork to get it.

The reason why any of this matters is that Eclipse is the best chance the IT industry has of creating a single toolkit framework that generates Java applications in a way that millions of programmers can gain experience in and make use of for a long time in their careers. The other alternative in the market is going to be .NET and Visual Studio.NET, which are already unified because they come from only one vendor: Microsoft. If the companies pushing Java (IBM and Sun, first and foremost) want to see Java succeed, there has to be a consistent, easy-to-use toolkit for Java developers, and Eclipse is it.

Now that IBM has buried the hatchet by giving away Swing support to Eclipse, Sun has to do the right thing and join the Eclipse project and stop messing around.

IBM, Advanced Systems Concepts (which has a tool called RPG Into Objects, which converts RPG to Java or C++), commercial Linux distributor Red Hat, and Instantiations, a provider of Java tools, are making contributions to the Visual Editor project, which will initially be able to generate Swing GUIs. They will be adding SWT support to the project as fast as they can.

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