Seriously cool java: F3
rzwitserloot posted in programming on January 24th, 2007

Chris Oliver and company at Sun are doing some extremely neat work with ‘F3′ - a descriptive add-on to java (it compiles to .class files) that completely revolutionizes the way you build GUIs. Without sacrificing type safety it makes writing GUIs a total snap, and, most importantly, the F3 code is extremely simple to maintain - a common problem with GUI code, as it tends to be difficult to see the structure when you’re down in the trenches wrestling the code.

His latest Cool F3 Demo on his blog is a fun showcase to check. He’s managed to hack video in there (unfortunately, for now, by way of QT4J, so you need both java AND QuickTime. Mac users can rest easy, it’ll work out of the box on any moderately recent mac) and some graphical effects.

With this, you can no longer say that java GUIs tend to look ugly. At least, this way, there’s nothing stopping you from making them work right and look good.

I’m neck-deep in web building at the moment, but if there’s a graphics-heavy desktop app you need to build, I suggest you have a good look.