Swing or SWT

When programming GUI with Java, the question of the choice between Swing and SWT .

My personal choice is Swing, first af all because I use it for a while. For example, I worked on a simple application in 2003 to created thumbnails images for original (a web photo gallery) written by jimmac.

Developing this application, I developed some Swing widgets (a splashscreen, status bar, a toolbar with outlook behaviour) you can find on my old java page and download here.

Figure 1. ss_components

So, I prefer Swing because :

I know it’s API. I should learn SWT, and what I saw of it make me think it won’t be simple.
You can make enhanced widgets with Swing and even impressive UI. You can read old posts on Romain Guy’s web page about Swing : really good stuff to learn. He now work for google on Android.
Netbeans can help you quickly develop your GUI with it’s GUI builder (previously called Matisse). I really appreciate the way it helps you place components on you UI. I also enhanced components (one from Romain Guy’s) to be full Java beans Swing components to be able to use them with Matisse (I’ll talk about them later).

The last reason will definitly confirm my choice of Swing. And really take a look at Romain’s blog to his impressive Swing GUI notes (and even his photos).