Chatroom Ideas

[Blacksage]

I have been working on an Chatroom kinda like AIM and MSN. I am using swing to do my GUI but I have run into problems on how I want to design it. I've made a version that I'm currently using. I'll post screen shots later.

[apomb]

sounds promising... what are the problems you're facing though?

[Blacksage]

Right now, I think my bad coding practices lol, but that has nothing to do with how my view looks. I think if I had other peoples input on how my view should look. Like everytime I look dig deep into swing stuff I learn that theres a new componet that I've never seen before. I was just wondering if theres something in swing that would make it more interesting.

[apomb]

well, we cant stab in the dark and hope we say the right component you havent used... what HAVE you used, and what are you looking for?

as the Cheshire cat once said:

cheshire cat wrote:

* "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where ?" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"? so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

so, let us know where you want to go, and we can let you know how to get there, otherwise, it doesnt matter what you do, just keep trucking, you'll get somewhere

[Aziz]

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/ will likely help you.

[Reality Check]

The best thing you can do is look up the Java Help and experiment with all the swing components. Just test them out one by one, play with them, and see which suits you best. Another interesting thing to do is to try and make your own GUI. That'll be pretty cool

[Aziz]

In Java?

[Nick]

why not in Java?

[Reality Check]

While it may not be the best, I see nothing wrong with making your own GUI in Java.

[DemonWasp]

I can't speak to making your own GUI (seems like a lot of work), but if you want to build a good-looking GUI that's not as slow as swing, you may want to try the SWT project. It's a part of the Eclipse project (it's the UI package that they use for Eclipse). Completely cross-platform, fast, easy, looks pretty great and it's all in Java.

[Aziz]

Is it real completely cross platform. IIRC there's separate libraries for each platform.

But yes, SWT is a great alternative. And creating a GUI system in Java would be a very horrible process. Java SWING is based off of AWT, which is also a lot of native calls. Which means that's C code, and platform dependant.

Unless you mean building a GUI like one would do in Turing, in which case you'd have to make a program that runs like Turing, and still have to use AWT at the minimum to get the drawing panel.

[DemonWasp]

@Aziz: It may have platform-dependent C in the background, but the package they distribute works on all the major operating systems (at least Win / Linux / OSX). I don't mind the backend being in C/C++, and to tell the truth most of it looks like Java. If you were to distribute it, then you'd need to either package copies for each OS, or else just cram all the binaries into the same package. Not ideal, but such is life.

The appearance does vary *slightly* across platforms, but that's mostly so that it looks like it fits on each platform.

[Aziz]

That's what I meant. You have to make a separate distribution for every OS you want to support. That also means you have to pick OS's to support. SWING is included in the JRE, which is available for multiple platforms. You're code with SWT is all cross-platform, but not the package entirely. Not a big deal, but it is something to keep in mind.

[DemonWasp]

What you say is true, except that you don't have to produce a separate bundle for each OS - just make one (slightly larger) bundle and it should run on any OS - include all the libraries for each supported OS.

Where this isn't a good plan is in the case of Applets and such. In the case of client-side applications where a download time isn't a problem, then you can definitely go for SWT instead...and I would, since it's so much easier to use than Swing.

[Aziz]

Once you've been in SWING for a long time, it's like falling back down the hill and trying to climb it again with SWT It really doesn't use a lot of the same things (it's a bit more complicated to get a basic window up, but after that it's not so much). One thing I don't like it the use of the bitwise constants for things, and SWTException and SWTError.