This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Sam Dalton. Original Post: Wednesdays Sessions Feed Title: import java.*; Feed URL: http://www.samjdalton.com/pebble/rss.xml Feed Description: Random, Infrequent Bloggings of a Techie Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Sam Dalton Latest Posts From import java.*;

The sessions that I attended on Wednesday were mostly UI related. Firstly I attended a session about creating Native-looking UIs with Swing. To be honest I was not that impressed with this session. It focused on the NetBeans platform, which is not a UI that I like, or even think is particularly well designed (although I have not seen the very latest version.)

The second session that I attended was MUCH better. This session looked at the JGoodies framework, and how it can be used to develop cool UIs. After seeing some of the stuff that can be done pretty easily with this framework, I will definitely be downloading this and applying some of its techniques to our UI. The session also looked at how you can apply the Java2D and fill techniques for your applications to make them look more appealing and more balanced.

Session 3 was a more in depth look at Project Looking Glass, and man was I impressed. There are some really cool ideas in this project, and it would be really nice to ditch this antiquated 2D desktop paradigm that we have had for the last 20 years. Go check out the project, there is a developers release that can be downloaded and tried today, it even runs on Windows ;)