Re: SWT and AWT

[Stanley Brown <stanley dot brown at zimmer dot com>]

>I don't think including binary-only modules in CVS to get around

> licensing restrictions would be a very popular decision :-)
>  
Im not looking to win any popularity contests with my original posting 
but Im also not advocating anything really change. 

> First, SWT doesn't expose enough functionality to properly implement the
> AWT, so native-code workarounds would still be required. 
There are already projects using SWT to implement AWT.  I am not aware 
of any issues.

> Second, unlike GTK, SWT is not a widely-deployed, stable library -- in fact, I don't
> think SWT is even distributed separately from eclipse yet.  
SWT is available seperate from Eclipse (look under the Platform 
project).  SWT uses GTK in Linux environments so I dont think comparing 
the two is worthwhile.

> Third, SWT
> is an extra layer and so would introduce some performance overhead. 
>  
I have no tests to say otherwise.  Shrug.

> Fourth, SWT doesn't work on 64-bit systems.  
This is being fixed the last time I checked.  I would hazard to guess 
that this will be out in the next release of SWT.

> Fifth, GTK peers already
> exist and are semi-working.
>  
GTK on Win32 is not well supported.  I dont even know if exists for the 
Mac.  The widgets are not native to the platform and have a Gnomish 
feel.  Using GTK on Windows also adds a lot of memory for even the 
simplest application and has performance issues.  We wont even go into 
all the dll's you have to distribute to get this to work.