4.5. Summary

SWT is a well-designed native UI library for Java that is based on a long history of similar work done by IBM and OTI over the years. It is the native UI library of Eclipse itself and will be used extensively in any Eclipse plug-in that you create. SWT is also more than powerful enough to be used for creating standalone Java applications that don't require any of the other Eclipse frameworks.

SWT includes a rich collection of built-in widgets that are mapped to native-platform widgets whenever possible and are emulated when an appropriate widget is not present on a specific platform. SWT also includes a wide array of layout management classes ranging from the simple FillLayout to the more complex GridLayout and FormLayout. With these widgets and layout managers, you can create any user interface that you want to use for your plug-in.

References

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Harris, Robert, and Rob Warner, The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFACE. Apress, Berkeley, CA, 2004.

Holder, Stephen, Stephen Holder, Stanford Ng, and Laurent Mihalkovic, SWT/JFace in Action: GUI Design with Eclipse 3.0. Manning Publications, Greenwich, CT, 2004.

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Kues, Lynne, and Knut Radloff, "Into the Deep End of the SWT StyledText Widget," OTI, September 18, 2002 (www.eclipse.org/articles/StyledText%202/article2.html).

Li, Chengdong, "A Basic Image Viewer," University of Kentucky, March 15, 2004 (www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Image-Viewer/Image_viewer.html).

MacLeod, Caroly, n and Shantha Ramachandran, "Understanding Layouts in SWT," OTI, May 2, 2002 (www.eclipse.org/articles/Understanding%20Layouts/Understanding%20Layouts.htm).

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