SWT Designer for Stand Alone Apps

[ndixit]

Swt designer needs Eclipse. Privided that we download Eclipse environments.
1) Can we use Designer to create a sand alone appliaction that can be loaded by webstart?
2) Can we add our derived java widgets (like sortable table etc) into the desinger and use it to build the screens?
3) We already have some SWT standalone apps that we load through webstart. Could we reverseenginner the app? The events handle, uses JMS related stuff, tux related services etc. What happens to the references to those, do they remain untoched?
4) Instead of spagatting the code after the screen generation is there anyway to layer it with controller objects? i.e. once the event is generated is it safe to direct it to some controller object to handle it? Would it come in the way if we want to reload the generated screen code into the Desinger and make changes to it?

Sorry a lot of questions, but i want to use this tool where we already have an SWT application. But the future developement can be done using this tool or not I don't know. And these are the valid questions....raised.

[Eric Clayberg]

1) Can we use Designer to create a sand alone application that can be loaded by webstart?

Yes. You can use Designer to build plugins for Eclipse or standalone SWT (or Swing) applications.

2) Can we add our derived java widgets (like sortable table etc) into the designer and use it to build the screens?

Yes. You can access them individually via the "Choose Bean" command on the palette, or you can add them permanently to the "Custom Controls" palette group via the "Designer > SWT > Custom Controls" pref page.

3) We already have some SWT standalone apps that we load through webstart. Could we reverseenginner the app? The events handle, uses JMS related stuff, tux related services etc. What happens to the references to those, do they remain untouched?

Yes and yes. Most GUI builders in the world will only read and write the code that they themselves create. Designer is an exception to that rule. It can read and write not only the code it creates, but also a great deal of code generated by other GUI builders or by hand (probably better than 80%). You can also hand modify or refactor the generated code any way you like, and Designer generally won't care.

4) Instead of spagatting the code after the screen generation is there anyway to layer it with controller objects? i.e. once the event is generated is it safe to direct it to some controller object to handle it? Would it come in the way if we want to reload the generated screen code into the Designer and make changes to it?

In general, I would think that would be fine. I would want to see an example of exactly what you had in mind before giving a definitive answer. As I said above, Designer is very resilient in the face of refactorings. You can take the generated code and rename the methods, split them into smaller methods, change the order of the statements, insert your own in-line program logic, etc. It doesn't lock you into a particular style or force you into an "insert-user-changes-here" kind of mode.