Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 92 posts

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#21

Post by crispinb »

kevinherron wrote: post #15

Some suggestions: 1) don't start a new project in Swing when you could use JavaFX instead. Since you're using Kotlin, you'd also want to use TornadoFX, a nice DSL for JavaFX. 2) use Maven or Gradle (or hell, any build tool). Don't store artifacts in source control. I was really hoping someone who knew what they were doing was building this after the mini Electron debate earlier this week :/

Excuse a quick aside -- do you know of any good examples of real non-enterprisey apps using JavaFX?

Java desktop apps seem almost universally awful, but it doesn't seem like it has to be that way. I'd love to see some counter examples (IntelliJ's IDEs are honourable exceptions, but they're a bit of a special case).

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#22

Post by PleaseHelpMe »

Very nice app and promising. However, I would the UI would look more "modern" (don't know if this is possible or not). Right now the button and the scrollbar is a bit outdated. The bonus point for me that this is written in Kotlin, not another Electron RAM killer app.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#23

Post by copperx »

noncoml wrote: post #16

You were so preoccupied with wether you could, that you didn’t stop for one moment and think I’d you should! Just joking. Good job. I think it’s been years seen I saw a Java App, and have to say, I am a bit disappointed at how Swing still looks.

Swing will always look like that. Java FX is the new stuff.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#24

Post by solomatov »

noncoml wrote: post #16

You were so preoccupied with wether you could, that you didn’t stop for one moment and think I’d you should! Just joking. Good job. I think it’s been years seen I saw a Java App, and have to say, I am a bit disappointed at how Swing still looks.

You can substantially improve appearance by change the default look and feel to something better, for example your platforms' look and feel.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#27

Post by westoncb »

justboxing wrote: post #26

Ask HN on Show HN: Why is Swing UI still so Ugly ? 2 Decades since it's introduction in 1997 ( I remember being forced to use it in a trading OMS application in 2002), Swing UI looks frozen in time, ugly as ever.

Part of that is because Java has basically moved onto JavaFX over Swing—and partly it's because I built this specifically to resemble old Swing apps :)

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#28

Post by gruez »

justboxing wrote: post #26

Ask HN on Show HN: Why is Swing UI still so Ugly ? 2 Decades since it's introduction in 1997 ( I remember being forced to use it in a trading OMS application in 2002), Swing UI looks frozen in time, ugly as ever.

follow up question: why does swing use its own special snowflake design, when it could the OS's native design?

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#29

Post by westoncb »

gruez wrote: post #28
justboxing wrote: post #26

Ask HN on Show HN: Why is Swing UI still so Ugly ? 2 Decades since it's introduction in 1997 ( I remember being forced to use it in a trading OMS application in 2002), Swing UI looks frozen in time, ugly as ever.

follow up question: why does swing use its own special snowflake design, when it could the OS's native design?

Swing uses a pluggable 'look and feel' system (essentially themes)—which does include a 'native' look and feel for various OSs, including Windows and macOS.

Re: Show HN: Hacker News desktop application in Kotlin/Swing

#30

Post by hasenj »

The other day there was a post recommending the use of JavaFX.

I would really like to see a non-trivial app built on JavaFX in Kotlin, with the following properties:

- Does not look ugly.

- Is not composed of _merely_ OEM widgets. But includes custom elements, like one would normally see on websites (and by extension, Electron apps).

- Is lightweight and response, not just in terms of CPU and RAM, but in terms of user experience (think VSCode vs Android Studio).

Post reply on HN