I’ve started reading The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace in an effort to get a feel for SWT programming. The first impressions have been pretty good. The widget set is awesome, can’t wait to get me some CoolBar action!
It’s kinda weird seeing a main routine with a standard Windows-like message pump. Takes me back to my Win32 days. And the need to free non-contained resources is a probably going to be a bit of a pain. But the payback is a true native look and feel, and the option to use GCJ to generate a native binary. Baby!
Anyways, the book is definitely a good read. Seems to have pretty comprehensive coverage of the libraries and a good helping of practical advice. I’ve just finished the chapter on layout managers, and I’m missing JGoodies Forms already. Fortunately, there’s an SWT Port of Forms. Gotta check it out. I love that layout manager.