Eclipse RCP or Netbeans Platform?

[CptPicard]

Okay... time has come to bite the bullet and start considering writing a GUI for my "product" because I am starting to grow tired of pushing my data through a sequence of text files and command-line tools. The data manipulation workflow is also becoming so varied that a having a non-sequential GUI is warranted.

So we're essentially dealing with a Java "workbench" that allows spreadsheet-like views to sets of data that are then pushed through all sorts of operations, producing new spreadsheet-like views of data.

I have really never written proper desktop GUI apps before excluding some really simple Swing stuff, but am sort of drawn to the two dominant platforms for writing these kinds of "own the machine" applications, namely Eclipse and Netbeans. Would like to hear some opinions as to what the differences between the two are and which one is the more mature and/or easy to use...

[mike_g]

I cant comment on Eclipse as I have never used it but Netbeans is probably my favorite IDE ever. The code completion and error checking make creating all that verbose Swing (or whatever gui toolkit) code much faster.

I'm not so keen on the Netbeans form designer though as it locks you out of the code. If you need flexibility in your layout I'd recommend coding the UI by hand instead using layout managers. If you havent used them already the Table layout and Mig layout extensions are very handy.

IDK if you're planning on using Swing or not, but what I can say is that using netbeans with Swing can be very productive. I timed myself once: 500 lines of code in 3 hours. I think that must have been a personal record

[CptPicard]

Thanks, but I'm sort of more interested in the "platform" side of them -- I use both as IDEs in general already. As you probably know, both Eclipse and Netbeans themselves are built on top of reusable libraries

[mike_g]

Lol, yeah I guess you must have used netbeans before. I'm not really sure what the difference between the platform thing is, but I guess I'll find out

[Shin_Gouki2501]

I have done some projects in SWT/JFace and a course in RCP.

I would suggest to start of with SWT and then take a look at JFace Viewer ( u love them) this combined with tabs and other JFace stuff "should" do the Job.
RCP is on a much higher level. The Workbench ofers you powerfull mechanisms like cross view selection provider/service. Using commands you can really plug things together ( comands, like CTRL+O) where they belong or you wish them to be. Context, Perspective and "View" Concetps ( not the Jface Viewer!) help to build flexible and customizables GUIs. But as some things go easy some are difficult to achieave. So if you explorer JFace and need mroe then go RCP until then SWT + JFace is just fine.

Good luck and hope to see soon something from your "product" ( funny that RCP calls its configured execuatble also : product

[thomasaaron]

I guess I'm not sure what you are asking either. I'll just register my opinion...

I've used Netbeans for Java/Swing programming now for about a year, and I'd NEVER give it up for Eclipse.

Eclipse is clever in its own right, but I find it to not be all that intuitive and it doesn't hold a candle to netbeans for designing swing guis.

[jamesdcarroll]

I've done Swing GUI programming in Eclipse and would never give it up for Netbeans (so there... )

I'm currently learning RCP myself so the advice that I would give you is this:
1. Eclipse uses SWT which is a thin layer that ultimately calls the underlying OSs GUI widgets. As such your app will look to your user like any other app that they run. Netbeans uses Swing (from what I've read) and therefore will have to carry its look and feel with it and will only be as good as the LnF. Both will ultimately suffers from Java's inherent 'least common denominator' problem.

2. I can't speak to Netbeans, but Eclipse (despite protestations to the contrary) has a particular perspective on what your app's overall design will be. Basically you will create panels that fall into two general categories: views that are dockable/movable about the edges of your app and editors which occupy the center of the screen. The classic "Explorer" style app: tree on the left, selected item on the right. Yes, you can work around that, but it will always feel like a fight. At least it does to me.

3. Eclipse has a plethora of apps built on it. The RCP book mentions that NASA uses it, IBM Lotus Expeditor (nee Workplace Client Technology) is built on it, and its the base for Apache's Directory Studio. Netbeans doesn't even have a 'Samples' page of fake apps that they taken the time to create. 'least not that I could find.

Bottomline, IMHO neither is perfect and neither is that horrible. My suggestion would to use Netbeans if you are comfortable with the IDE, Swing, and plan on reusing what you learn in other apps. I'm learning Eclipse RCP because I'm more comfortable in Eclipse and my company has forbade Netbeans.

[tinny]

I dont know a lot about either of these platforms expect this, your application has to be pretty big to justify the use of either of these.

You dont need a platform to write a good Java desktop application.
..............................

I have followed the NetBeans learning trail and was quite impressed.

http://www.netbeans.org/kb/trails/platform.html (the NetBeans.org learning trails as you know CptPicard are pretty good)

Also there is a Maven archetype for a NetBeans Platform project

One of my first impressions was WOW this is going to force me to build one fat application! (not phat)

Then WOW the NetBeans IDE allows me to very quickly start developing with the NetBeans platform!

There where pretty much only three things that excited me about the NetBeans Platform.

1. The internal update system (Better than the Eclipse one IMO)
2. The internal persistence module (JavaDB)
3. Visual Library API for data visualization

At this point in my investigation I lost interest and just started writing a standard Swing application, with my own MVC implementation.

BTW, I have heard very good things about JFace. UI data binding.

My claim to fame Java desktop application used the following technologies.

Swing
Substance
JFreeChart
Toplink JPA (Yes thats right, J2EE 5 style annotations and all)
JavaDB (basically derby DB)
JasperReports

This technology stack was great to work with and YES it did all work.

If you are interested in any of the above, just ask

So now to answer your question. I believe you should be using Visual studio 2008 to do your development.

[jespdj]

I have played a bit with Eclipse RCP, but never wrote a really serious application with it.

Nevertheless, my first impression of SWT and JFace was good, its design is much better than Java's AWT (and Swing). SWT is what AWT should have been (that's also the reason why IBM invented SWT years ago).

I don't know anything about the NetBeans platform besides that it's based on AWT and Swing.

[dmartin]

As a long time Java developer, I've done both. But I'll throw you a twist. My advice, should you choose to listen to it, is to use Java as your backend and Adobe Flex or Adobe Air as your front end. Flex/Air is super easy for a Java developer, since ActionScript is fairly close (although, closer to JavaScript or C#). And developing front-ends in Flex/Air is much, much, much easier to Swing or SWT. The UI will look better, and gives you more opportunity to innovate.

The negatives: Flex is open source, but the Flex Builder (pretty much a necessity) is not. Also, you cannot create a native L&F if that's what you want.