<p>Is there any IDE that simplifies creating Swing applications (ideally something along the lines of Visual Studio)</p>

[{'answer_id': 26469, 'author': 'Brian Warshaw', 'author_id': 1344, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1344', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Netbeans has some GUI-building support, and it's one of the most popular Java IDEs on the market. Give it a look.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 26470, 'author': 'pauldoo', 'author_id': 755, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/755', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I like the <a href="http://www.netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html" rel="noreferrer">Swing GUI Builder</a> from the <a href="http://www.netbeans.org/" rel="noreferrer">NetBeans IDE</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 26474, 'author': 'Knobloch', 'author_id': 2878, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2878', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I used to use MyEclipse quite a bit.  It had a decent IDE for making Swing forms and such.  I assume it has improved in the past year - they seem to add features in gobs and heaps, quite often.</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://www.myeclipseide.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.myeclipseide.com/</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 26481, 'author': 'Telcontar', 'author_id': 518, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/518', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>The latest version of NetBeans include a very nice and simple visual editor for Swing called Matisse</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/matisse.html" rel="noreferrer">Matisse</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 26517, 'author': 'Frank Krueger', 'author_id': 338, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/338', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I\'m a big fan of JetBrains, and when it comes to Java, <a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IntelliJ</a> is the best IDE I have used.</p>\n\n<p>For Swing, they have a fully interactive UI builder. And, for actual coding, their intellisense can\'t be beat.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 26545, 'author': 'Al.', 'author_id': 2881, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2881', 'pm_score': 5, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Like others have mentioned, NetBeans\' visual editor is pretty good, but it\'s based pretty heavily on the <a href="https://java.net/projects/appframework/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Swing Application Framework</a>, so you\'d need to get an understanding of how it works to properly use it (although you don\'t need to dig in to just test things).</p>\n\n<p>Other than that there are also:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the <a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IntelliJ IDEA</a> visual editor (<a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/gui_builder.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">flash demo of the features</a>)</li>\n<li>and Eclipse\'s <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/vep/WebContent/main.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Visual Editor</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Personally I\'ve used NetBeans\' and IDEA\'s visual editors. Both are nice, but I thought NetBeans had a leg up, because it doesn\'t use any proprietary way of saving the GUI structure and instead does something similar to what Visual Studio does - auto-generating the code that you can then add to. IDEA stores the information in a separate file which means you have to use IDEA to edit the layout visually later.</p>\n\n<p>I have not used Eclipse\'s Visual Editor.</p>\n\n<p>My vote is for NetBeans\' visual editor. I think it satisfies what most people are looking for in a visual editor and leaves it flexible enough to plug the holes manually through code without affecting the visual editor (so you can switch back and forth between code and design views without breaking either).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 27523, 'author': 'zvikico', 'author_id': 2823, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2823', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Try <a href="http://www.instantiations.com/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Instantiations</a>\' <a href="http://www.instantiations.com/windowbuilder/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Windows Builder Pro</a>. It includes <a href="http://www.instantiations.com/windowbuilder/swingdesigner/index.html" rel="noreferrer">Swing Designer</a>, which is a Swing UI builder. It is based on Eclipse.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 27586, 'author': 'alves', 'author_id': 2945, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2945', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>For me, the best visual Swing editor is <a href="http://www.jformdesigner.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">JFormDesigner</a>, which you can run standalone or as a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse.</p>\n\n<p>It generates proper (actually readable) source code, it\'s very ergonomic and intuitive and, above all, very extensible. That last point is really important, because if you want to build a decent Swing application, you\'ll have to extend the base components or use some third-party libraries and it <strong>must be easy</strong> to integrate those in the visual editor.</p>\n\n<p>It\'s not free, but it\'s a bargain for the power you get (129 EUR / 159 USD). I\'ve been using it for a few years and love it.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 27615, 'author': 'Laurent K', 'author_id': 2965, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2965', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>As I'm using Eclipse, I use the Visual Editor plugin. It generates clean source code, with good patterns and easy to patch/modify/extend.\nUnfortunately, it is not very stable. But it's worth trying.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 29033, 'author': 'jwarzech', 'author_id': 3111, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3111', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I have switched between several IDEs and the one that I believe has the best GUI builder in terms of use and performance would have to be NetBeans.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 86373, 'author': 'jb.', 'author_id': 7918, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/7918', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I like Eclipse\'s VisualEditor (VE), and sometime ago I\'ve tried to switch to\nanother editor, but I found it impossible. Visual editor has this\nfeature that it generates manageable, readable, editable, and easy-to-understand code.</p>\n\n<p>Unlike both mentioned earlier NetBeans editor and WindowBuilder it uses the lazy initialization pattern to separate initialization of components. Also it does not need to lock down parts of code that you can\'t edit; you may edit code by hand, and VE is still able to work with your changes.</p>\n\n<p>The only disadvantage of VE is that it uses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Releases" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eclipse v3.2</a> (Callisto) (there is no official build for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Releases" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eclipse v3.4</a> (Ganymede), or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)#Releases" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eclipse v3.3</a> (Europa)), so effectively you have to use two Eclipses instances, one for VE and one for the rest of the development.</p>\n\n<p>I took it from recent discussion on comp.lang.java.gui (I was the author of this post, so I could do it rightfully). <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.gui/browse_thread/thread/3722f92594039d24/1f0b605efebb1b39#1f0b605efebb1b39" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is the link to the whole discussion.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 279385, 'author': 'joeforker', 'author_id': 36330, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/36330', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="https://java.net/projects/abeille/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Abeille</a> is very good and is based on the JGoodies FormLayout. Unlike almost every other Java GUI builder, Abeille does not generate code by default. In the project I used it on, it was wonderful to avoid reading or scrolling through the layout code (because that code no longer existed). Most of our hand-written code concerned itself with connecting events to actions, simply asking the layout for the relevant controls.</p>\n\n<p>It\'s a crime that code generation is the default way to layout code in Java because better ways of doing GUIs have been around for decades. I have used Matisse, the NetBeans GUI code generator. While Matisse (now known as "<a href="http://netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Swing GUI Builder</a>") makes it pleasant to layout components, it is similar to all other code generation tools because when you use Matisse you must live in constant fear that someone else edited the "you cannot edit this in NetBeans" GUI sections outside of NetBeans. As soon as you touch the layout builder again it could destroy their work and then you have a broken GUI. There might be some simple task like re-ordering a variable initialization and its use or re-naming a variable (this was especially a problem when using Matisse\'s database feature). You know how to do this by editing the un-editable source code but may waste time trying to figure out how to do the same thing in the GUI builder. Like most code generation tools, it might get you started, but eventually you will have to maintain the generated code yourself.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 281446, 'author': 'Aaron Digulla', 'author_id': 34088, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/34088', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Frankly, I've never seen an editor which comes even close to what I can do manually in a text editor. All the visual editors are nice if you only have very simple needs like putting a few buttons in a window. When things become more complex, visual editors quickly loose their competitive edge.</p>\n\n<p>I usually use a bunch of high-level classes built from more basic widgets and wire my UI from that. This also allows me to easily test my UI with automated JUnit tests (because I can control what the source looks like).</p>\n\n<p>Lastly, changes to the UI won't generate unnecessary noise in the version control system.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 504353, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I have tried a few and the closest I have found that comes close to Visual Studio is NetBeans. Version 6.5 is excellent and really improved over version 5.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1723283, 'author': 'Mot', 'author_id': 209706, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/209706', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>We have been doing Swing development for nearly the past 10 years. There are some nice GUI builders available (e.g. <a href="http://www.jformdesigner.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">JFormDesigner</a>), but <strong>all restrict us too much</strong> in different kinds.</p>\n\n<p>For example, we have a lot of components without public no-arg constructor (e.g. a JTable subclass which requires the model in the constructor) or we have component factories.</p>\n\n<p>Desktop applications usually have to be obfuscated. Obfuscation very easily breaks user interfaces created with a GUI designer or requires much work to avoid obfuscating such classes.</p>\n\n<p>Another often happening case is that, for example, a panel should only contain some components depending on some condition. Simply hiding them would make the GUI look bad; they rather should not be added instead. I never found a GUI editor which provides this flexibility and even if there would be one, it would be so hard to use, that I definitely would be faster with good old Java code.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1980815, 'author': 'Aberghousse', 'author_id': 240979, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/240979', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I think the best editor that can exist is Visual editor for Eclipse.</p>\n\n<p>The only drawback is the fact that we can't re-edit the visual part when we modified the source code. I hope one day we will have a tool that rivals Visual Studio in this aspect.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 5175073, 'author': 'Peter Tseng', 'author_id': 280783, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/280783', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://code.google.com/javadevtools/wbpro/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WindowBuilder Pro</a> for Eclipse</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Free!</li>\n<li>It works with existing code and doesn\'t lock you in (as opposed to NetBeans)</li>\n<li>It works with MiGLayout</li>\n<li>It does have some conventions that your view classes have to follow, though.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Installing in Eclipse&nbsp;v4.2 (Juno):</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Goto - menu <em>Help</em> → <em>Install New Software</em>...</li>\n<li>Select - Work With: Juno - <a href="http://download.eclipse.org/releases/juno" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://download.eclipse.org/releases/juno</a>.</li>\n<li>The WindowBuilder items are under "General Purpose Tools" (or use the filter).</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Older versions and zips are available at <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/download.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/download.php</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 5600179, 'author': 'Guido Anselmi', 'author_id': 593010, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/593010', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I have not used anything other than NetBeans for Swing, but I have been extremely happy with it. I used it for 18 months on a $25M application and to develop an prototype application to replace a Windows Forms app.</p>\n\n<p>Up and until Microsoft came out with WPF, in my opinion, there was not a better tool kit for traditional desktop applications. (I always found Windows Forms too limiting).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 9124933, 'author': 'Alex', 'author_id': 1127270, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1127270', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Of course you should use NetBeans for building a Java Swing GUI. The drag and drop features and auto-code generation are quite mature. </p>\n\n<p>For Eclipse, I am not sure. But because IBM has its own SWT package for GUI, I am not sure whether it support Swing.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10248992, 'author': 'Vladimir', 'author_id': 1298234, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1298234', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>NetBeans is the simplest to use (<a href="http://netbeans.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://netbeans.org/</a>). However, it does not allow you to edit (fine tune) the generated code.</p>\n\n<p>JDeveloper (<a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/jdev/overview/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/jdev/overview/index.html</a>) is another solution and does allow you to edit the code... but I feel NetBeans is more intuitive.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10254476, 'author': 'MarianP', 'author_id': 609973, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/609973', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Eclipse Visual Editor is pretty dull in my experience. I had more luck with <strong>JBuilder</strong>, which is also based on Eclipse, simply adding a few plugins to it as many other commercial products do. It is still not able to parse any Swing code (I doubt any Swing WISIWYG editor does), but if you start with it, it gives you relatively seamless experience.\nYou need to pay for it though.</p>\n\n<p>At the end of the day, I have worked with different similar UI tools, Flash Builder, Delphi etc., but unless you do some relatively trivial UI design, not including much business logic and communication with other layers, you'll have to accept that what you are capable of creating in code once you learn to do it properly is much more powerful than what any editor is capable of providing you with.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 10274630, 'author': 'Mr. Xymon', 'author_id': 1292393, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1292393', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I recommend WindowBuilder plugin for Eclipse IDE 3.7.2 Indigo / 24 February 2012. </p>\n\n<p>Here\'s for the step-by-step installation:  <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/teachmemrxymon/java/create-java-gui-as-easy-as-visual-basic" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Create Java GUI as Easy as Visual Basic</a></p>\n\n<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/f6bUp.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10275130, 'author': 'Bob the Egg', 'author_id': 837316, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/837316', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There are two that you can use (I\'ve used them both, and they are both very powerful, and easy to use):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://netbeans.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">NetBeans</a> which has a built in <a href="http://netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">GUI Builder</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Or you can use:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eclipse</a> with the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Windowbuilder</a> <a href="http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/windowbuilder-pro-gui-designer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">plugin</a>\n\n<ul>\n<li>(it can be downloaded <a href="http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/windowbuilder-pro-gui-designer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a> and <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/download.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>)</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Personally, I prefer Eclipse with <a href="http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/windowbuilder-pro-gui-designer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Windowbuilder</a>, but that\'s just me. You can use either one.</p>\n\n<p><br></p>\n\n<p><strong>Here is a picture of the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Windowbuilder</a> plugin:</strong></p>\n\n<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HRrVE.gif" alt="enter image description here"></p>\n\n<p><br/>\n<br/></p>\n\n<p><strong>And here is a picture of <a href="http://netbeans.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">NetBeans\'</a> built in <a href="http://netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">GUI Builder</a>:</strong></p>\n\n<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/uBnha.png" alt="Enter image description here"></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10275157, 'author': 'abhi', 'author_id': 1312477, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1312477', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Use NetBeans, I have also successfully developed one application using NetBeans. \nIt is realy awesome, it helps you while writing the code.<br>\nSince Swing generates some code on its own so it is really helpful to use Netbeans.<br>\nGo through it and you can always ask question and problems.<br>\nIt will be good if you go for latest version release.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10288168, 'author': 'Jeremy Brooks', 'author_id': 602161, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/602161', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>JFormDesigner.</p>\n\n<p>I used NetBeans extensively in the past for GUI design, but I am now using IntelliJ with the JFormDesigner plugin. I have tried several other solutions, and this is the one I am sticking with.</p>\n\n<p>JFormDesigner also works with JBuilder and Eclipse, so you are not locking your projects to one particular IDE.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10298568, 'author': 'komputisto', 'author_id': 629033, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/629033', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I have a very good experience with <strong>NetBeans</strong>. It's so easy if you know every minor parts of these applications.</p>\n\n<p>The most complicated part is using, for example, the layouts (if you can not handle complicated parts), but everything is almost plug &amp; play.</p>\n\n<p>And in addition, you can put <code>JFrame</code> into other frames without creating another frame class for this. I think that will be good.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 10305800, 'author': 'Bitmap', 'author_id': 340390, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/340390', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I personally will suggest <em>NetBeans Swing Builder</em>. Yet, if you want total control and to gain an in-depth understanding of the Swing framework, I have noticed doing it free hand is the ultimate choice.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10314688, 'author': 'Balaswamy Vaddeman', 'author_id': 1037609, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1037609', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="https://developers.google.com/java-dev-tools/download" rel="nofollow">window builder pro</a> is good option and it is free also.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10314850, 'author': 'Romain Hippeau', 'author_id': 313137, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/313137', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I have always coded my UIs by hand. The frustration of dealing with screen builders and filling out all those property sheets is too much for me. After a couple of screens and a little research I am just as productive.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10317964, 'author': 'Chad', 'author_id': 1338915, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1338915', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>As others have mentioned, my best experience with Java SWING applications is with NetBeans. NetBeans has a WYSIWYG editor, and the code is automatically generated for you, which is then protected, however you can add custom code to add listeners and other events that the end user may be interested in using, such as buttons, text forms and areas, and other nice GUI tools.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10321573, 'author': 'Felipe Queiroz', 'author_id': 1344669, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1344669', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>When I use swing, I usually use the NetBeans.</p>\n\n<p>If you prefer the Eclipse IDE, there are the Visual Editor plugin.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/26458', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2875/']