Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is a short course about Swing visual design and user interface implementation. Metamorphosis can help you understand and avoid common design errors of Swing based Java applications.

Therefore it provides a configurable GUI which demos both, the problems and their solutions.

Running:

You can either web start or download Metamorphosis. To launch the application from a command-line, use: java -jar metamorphosis.jar.

You can launch Fakeclipse from a command-line with a given style: franken, rookie, standard, advanced, elegant, standardX, advancedX, elegantX, where the last three use a multi-platform look instead of a Windows emulation.

java -cp metamorphosis.jar -Dstyle=elegantX com.jgoodies.metamorphosis.Fakeclipse

Fakeclipse:

Metamorphosis utilizes a tiny Swing based application called Fakeclipse, that emulates the appearance of an Eclipse IDE on Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000, and with some restrictions on XP. Although its a live application, it cant do anything useful and provides no actions. Only the File, Edit and Source menus contain items to demo an alignment problem.

Swing vs. SWT:

Fakeclipse is intended to shed some light into the "Swing vs. SWT" discussion. I dont take a position but want to contribute some visual input.

The Eclipse IDE provides an elegant overall appearance - at least on Windows platforms. And thats what most people are referring to when talking about the SWT. However, most of this look can quickly be emulated by Swing. It took me 2:50 hours to build the original Fakeclipse using the JGoodies Windows Look&Feel that I had built before for JDiskReport.