Graphical UI designers have long been among the strongest features of Windows-based development tools, such as Visual Basic. Instead of having to write UI code by hand, such tools facilitate user interface design via intuitive graphical gestures, often based on the concept of dragging and dropping components from a palette onto a design canvas.

Even after almost ten years of Java UI development, graphical UI designers have been a sore spot for Java programmers. [See Artima's interview with NetBeans evangelist Tim Boudreau on some of the reasons for this.]

Among the few exceptions is JFormDesigner from FormDev software. JFormDesigner provides plug-ins to both Eclipse and IntelliJ, and supports UI design in a manner very familiar to Windows developers. FormDev recently released JFormDesigner 3.0.

UI design tools depend on code generation. The generally messy code produced by such tools has been a major concern, and is often a reason against using a graphical designer tool. JFormDesigner 3.0 promises much improved code generation, based on code-centric builder APIs, such as JGoodies Forms. Improved code-generation features include:

• Generation of explicit import statements
• Use this. to access component member variables.
• Use PanelBuilder for JGoodies FormLayout.
• Specification of i18n getBundle() and getString() code templates.
• Parametrization of component class names.
• Uses Java 5 language features: auto-boxing, @Override, and enums as property values, and annotations for component variables.

Additional features in 3.0 include support for Swing client properties, the ability to work with tables, and better internationalization.

To what extent do you rely on graphical form designers, and to what extent do you prefer to code UIs by hand? In general, what do you think of the state of Java UI designers?