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Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

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Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#11

After my horrible experience building a desktop cross platform app in Swing GUI, I vowed to never use Java. I wonder how Zetes addresses the problems with Swing.

Any concrete example of issues with Swing, or just general discomfort?

The font rendering for Linux is terrible. Just look at Intellij IDEA in ubuntu for example.

It's a wonderful editor but I can't use it since it is almost not readable.

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any concrete example of issues with Swing, or just general discomfort?

The font rendering for Linux is terrible. Just look at Intellij IDEA in ubuntu for example. It's a wonderful editor but I can't use it since it is almost not readable.

This is a real problem one thing worth trying is Terminus at 16/12pt it's a pixel perfect font created as a TTF so requires no aliasing etc.

Completely solved the issue for me.

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#13
> Zetes is a crossplatform lightweight framework which allows the user to develop console or native-looking GUI programs, written in Java, that could run on a machine without any JVM installed.

Awesome, sounds great.

> And in addition it has a beautiful GUI (based upon SWT).

Hm, I had a bad experience with SWT (which was over 10 years ago, so probably irrelevant). But what annoyed me is that if Windows could do X and Y, and Linux could do Y and Z, then SWT could only do Y. I found its lack of features a problem. I felt like I had to create my own components by hand a lot of the time. Swing, on the other hand, would let me do X, Y and Z and make sure they look decent on both OSes.

> The main feature of the library is that it makes a thin wrapper on SWT and basic system libraries that makes it possible to make an app which has a native look-and-feel under different platforms. For example, the "Exit" item is in system menu on OS X, but in "File" menu under Windows; about box has "OK" button in Windows, but doesn't have any on OS X and so on...

Mind, it's been over 10 years, but how is this different from plain SWT? Is it just that it can run without a JRE?

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#15
People are complaining about how bad SWT is, and I definitely agree. It's a product of systems engineers, not the modern hipster-designer breed of developers.

If you fall into the latter category and want to work with Java, I highly recommend JavaFX Webview. It's essentially webkit as a UI layer, so you get to work with HTML5/Bootstrap/whatever. Surprisingly, its interface from Java to Javascript is quite well designed.

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#16
To see the difference between Swing and SWT just look at Intellij and Eclipse.

Intellij (use the darkula theme its beautiful), looks great and responds very quickly in both the editor and when performing asynchronous operations. (I have issues with some of its functionality but thats a different story). Intellij is Swing.

Eclipse, is a 2 second push to pain IDE and always has been. Its SWT. As a 15 year java developer I really believe anyone building on the eclipse/SWT framework needs to stop. There is no benefit to the user or the developer at this point to using it except to support a dead fork of the language. In fact there really are no (as in almost zero) SWT apps out there, so why would you think its even a good idea 10 years later? Go work for IBM submit a patch to eclipse. YAY.

I have built personally beautiful apps using Swing, and if Intellij can pull it off so well, clearly swing has gotten a bad rap.

My last nit pick is the exe concept. This is utterly moronic. Its a more or less straightforward concept to bundle a JRE with your app or use an installed local copy. People have only been doing this for oh I dunno, 13 or so years??

The Windows-ification of Java gets infinite down votes from me. The SWT part is merely a waste of time.

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#17
post #13

> Zetes is a crossplatform lightweight framework which allows the user to develop console or native-looking GUI programs, written in Java, that could run on a machine without any JVM installed. Awesome, sounds great. > And in addition it has a beautiful GUI (based upon SWT). Hm, I had a bad experience with SWT (which was over 10 years ago, so probably irrelevant). But what annoyed me is that if Windows could do X and…

A lot of effort went into this obviously.

How does it compare to JavaFX -- the new GUI toolkit built into the standard JRE now?

(I have not used SWT, but I do love JavaFX)

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#19
post #5
post #3

This actually looks intriguing. Some links to screenshots or sample programs would be nice.

Zetes Examples: https://github.com/bigfatbrowncat/zetes-examples

Low-res and you can't really see the control elements.

Color me skeptical.

Re: Zetes: A lightweight cross-platform GUI application framework for Java

#20
JVM is a sticky affair by itself.For concurrent and per-formant GUI applications in java that grow over a given expectation,it would need very specific VM tuning like GC behavior,native profiling etc.Most of it comes packaged in a decently stable manner for Oracle JVM, how about a new JVM vendor like in here?

Also am i the only one or is JVM packaging a really big affair?Cant we use netbeans platform pack200+MSI installer or pack200+linux+native_installer or similar for packaging as app?

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