Searching for WindowBuilder documentation/API

Question

I'm in a project with WindowBuilder Pro, and while trying to get a good grip of it I've been searching forever for good documentation without any luck.

The best that I've found is Googles WindowBuilder Pro Infopage but that isn't extensive enough for me.

Does anyone know any other good documentation? Or am I perhaps a bit off track here? I have very limited Swing-experience, and perhaps I'd be better off studying the SWING API instead of looking for WindowBuilder documentation?

Very thankful for any tips.

Glanville

Answer 1

The WindowBuilder docs that you reference are quite extensive (nearly 300 pages), but they are intended to be docs about how to use WindowBuilder itself. They are intentionally not intended to be documentation for the Swing, SWT or GWT APIs and should not be considered to be substitutes for those. There are plenty of good sources of information on those APIs.

If you are interested in info on Swing, the primary source should be the docs and tutorials provided by Sun/Oracle. Once you have a basic understanding of Swing itself, I think you will find the WindowBuilder docs to be of great help in learning WindowBuilder which itself will be great help to you in rapidly creating Swing UIs.

I should also point out that the WindowBuilder docs in place today are actually better than those in place prior to the Google acquisition of Instantiations because they represent a further six months of work and refinement. While the product has seen a change in legal ownership, it has not actually "changed hands" in the literal sense. The exact same team that developed the tool at Instantiations has continued to work on it at Google and is also forming the core of the committer team at Eclipse.org. This continuity of development stretches eight years into the past and will continue well into the future.

Pliable

The google tutorial stuff has continued to improve and improve, including this great quick start: developers.google.com/java-dev-tools/wbpro/quick_start – Mazza

Answer 2

This is in a really early stage but this is something that we have been working on which might be helpful for you: http://www.codemaps.org/s/WindowBuilder

Schadenfreude

Answer 3

WindowBuilder has changed hands several times in the last 12 months (from Instantiations to Google, followed by Google giving it to the Eclipse Foundation). Admittedly, the documentation appears to have suffered. However, as the project is still in the process of being provisioned to the Eclipse Foundation, the best place to search for documentation should be the Eclipse WindowBuilder Documentation Page, which is available from the Eclipse WindowBuilder page. Currently, the documentation page only lists the Google InfoPage that you've mentioned, but I suspect that in time the documentation will increase greatly in quality.

That being said, there is no substitute for a solid understanding of the underlying technology that you plan on using within WindowBuilder, be it SWT, Swing, or GWT. WindowBuilder will make some things easier, but many of the features will be confusing if you don't have a firm grasp of the underlying concepts. Sadly, most tutorials are still centered around hand-coding the GUI, so there is an opportunity for an enterprising documentation/tutorial writer to provide a gateway to those who wish to learn technologies like Swing and SWT using WindowBuilder.

Anthracene

Answer 4

Yea, leave the WindowsBuilder behind. The Swing tutorials are excellent: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/

Stomach

Knowing Swing is a good idea but the code generated by WB is quite clean so it can't do any harm and it does speed up the process of making a design. – Facing

I don't see anything about any layout or gui builder stuff that works inside eclipse at the above link. Netbeans only. – Mazza