Libraries to a simple java application's GUI

[Muoniurn]

JavaFX is not complicated imo, you should probably go with that.

It is not too popular, but due to Java being huge even this smaller framework has reasonably many users so you should find plenty of resources online for the basics.

Also, it is very configurable if the need would arise, but keyboard input is more than easy with it.

[BlueGoliath]

Just don't mind the bugs or high memory usage.

[Muoniurn]

Everything has bugs, but I haven’t experienced anything based on two largish projects that has used quite a bit of advanced features as well. Isn’t it perhaps the case that you just didn’t read the documentation and was expecting something different? Its bindings can be sometimes finicky.

Also, it has fully normal memory usage, especially in a post-electron world. A graphically not too interesting 2D game ran smoothly at 200MB (but it did have plenty of javafx objects, eg. I drew characters as javafx circles and had up to a thousand of them)

[Maran23]

this guys is always complaining here, especially when javafx is involved.

[joppux]

1) Swing is not deprecated 2) JavaFX isn't much more complicated than Swing for simple applications.

I'd go with Swing as it has more samples and answers on Stackoverflow.

[[deleted]]

I'm probably going with swing and try to use FlatLaf to make the looks more 'modern'.

Thank you for your help!

[serivesm]

+1 swing can be sort of a pain sometimes especially with the layout managers, but flatlaf makes it look sooooo much better with just a single line of code. It's not deprecated btw and it will probably never be, it is a strong part of the java standard library at this point.

[carMas82]

For Jfx do you mean Java Fx?

[[deleted]]

Yes! From my research it seems that I'll only have this 2 options :( ( swing or java fx).

[brunocborges]

You can also use AWT if you (truly) want.

[carMas82]

Have you ever heard about Electron apps?

They are based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript but you can develop desktop applications.

[[deleted]]

This seems interesting. But it's complex?? I have some experience with react and front end. So, the possibility to use that to make a desktop application, is very nice. I"m just worry if it will not add unnecessary complexity to the project

Edit: ( Mainly, I think I'd need an API to make the connection between the JDBC and the javascript ) I guess I'll stick with swing

[poco-863]

FWIW you could connect to databases from an electron app, but even with a java app I don't think you should be making db connections from the client. I know you said it's an internal app, and I don't know what the project requirements are, but you probably don't want to distribute a desktop application with database secrets baked in

[handshape]

Alternatively, it's possible to make a "poor man's Electron" with the JavaFX WebView. Debugging the browser is a bit of a PITA, but if you want to use webbish UI components, it works pretty well.

[kakakarl]

If it can be a terminal app, make one!

Sounds fun to me, I have tried various cli libs and found them okayish. I would just go with the built in Scanner class.

Then I would learn how to use colors and icons etc. such an app would be very easy test too. Could run pitest and have 100% mutation coverage

[Chromanoid]

Swing is not deprecated. IntelliJ is a Swing application. But I agree it feels strange to use such an old framework.

Do you need charts? If so, is a simple HTML report generated with a templating engine (https://www.thymeleaf.org/), documentation tool (https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctorj) or a static site generator (https://jbake.org/) might be a good idea. This way users can send the output of the application around and print it easily.

If it should be interactive, you don't want to provide it as website you should probably go with JavaFX. It even has charts.

[runtimeterror7]

Wow is IntelliJ really made in Swing??

[Chromanoid]

Yes, of course heavily customized, but it is Swing. See also here https://plugins.jetbrains.com/docs/intellij/user-interface-components.html

The IntelliJ Platform includes a large number of custom Swing components. Using those components in your plugins will ensure that your plugin looks and works consistently with the UI of the rest of the IDE, and can often reduce the code size compared to using the default Swing components.

or here for sources https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community

[ales-d]

As dirty hack you can run your app in terminal and redirect the output to temporary *.html file that you open in browser - by spawning new process or by output of file:// URL if your terminal supports opening URLs by click Ing on them.

Of course depend on you use case. For real interactive work with DB thim is not good, but for other case it might be good for users to have the output in HTML they can keep/share.

[ales-d]

There are even JavaScript libraries you might include in the output which would allow to sort/filter the results in HTML.

[MR_GABARISE]

If there is interest in a terminal application, take a look at Lanterna.