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Eclipse WindowBuilder. This tutorial describes the usage of WindowBuilder for creating user interfaces.

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1. Using the SWT Designer (WindowBuilder) for visual UI design

1.1. Overview of the SWT Designer

SWT Designer is a visual editor used to create graphical user interfaces. It is a two way parser, e.g., you can edit the source code or use a graphical editor to modify the user interface. SWT Designer synchronizes between both representations.

SWT Designer is part of the WindowBuilder project. WindowBuilder provides the foundation and SWT Designer adds the support for working with SWT based applications.

1.2. Using SWT Designer

SWT Designer provides a special editor. This editor can work with Eclipse 4 parts, SWT and JFace dialogs, JFace wizards, etc.

The following screenshot demonstrates what the editor looks like.

SWT Designer allows you to drag-and-drop SWT components into an existing layout. You can configure layout settings and create event handlers for your widgets.

SWT Designer contributes additional SWT and JFace templates to the Eclipse IDE. For example, you can use it to create Composites and add these to the Eclipse user interface. To create a new Composite select File New Other… WindowBuilder SWT Designer SWT Composite.

SWT Designer has support to establish data binding via the JFace Data Binding framework.

2. Install SWT Designer

To install SWT Designer use the Help Install New Software menu entry and enter the following update site to use it. https://download.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/latest/

WindowBuilder downloads lists the available SWT designer releases. Typical, the latest release is the best to use.

3. Optional Exercise: Getting started with SWT Designer

3.1. Building a user interface

Add a new view to your application using a model fragmet. The implementations class of this view should be WindowBuilderPlaygroundPart.

The following exercise assumes that you have SWT Designer already installed.

Right-click on your WindowBuilderPlaygroundPart class and select Open With WindowBuilder Editor.

WindowBuilder uses the @PostConstruct method to identify that a class is an Eclipse part. This method needs to specify at least a Composite as parameter.

package com.vogella.tasks.ui.parts;

import jakarta.annotation.PostConstruct;

import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Composite;

public class WindowBuilderPlaygroundPart {

    // the WindowBuilder / SWTDesigner tooling
    // uses the @PostConstruct method to figure out
    // that the class is an Eclipse 4 part

    // one method must be annotated with @PostConstruct and
    // must receive at least a SWT Composite


    @PostConstruct
    public void createControls(Composite parent) {
        System.out.println(this.getClass().getSimpleName()
        + " @PostConstruct method called.");
    }
}