1. SWING & SWT
A Tale of Two Java GUI Libraries

2. AWT
(ABSTRACT WINDOW TOOLKIT)
 Oldest toolkit , part of java standard API
 It includes classes like Button, TextField, and Menu
 It also provides the necessary event handling
mechanism
 AWT controls may behave differently under different
operating systems
For example, it might be possible to right-click on a
button under operating system A showing a context
menu, but impossible to do so under operating system
B

3.  It relies on the native GUI elements of each
operating systems so known as“Platform
dependent “
Example
create a Button, a native Windows button will show
up if the application is running under windows, a
native Mac OS button will show up if the application
is running under Mac OS, a native Linux button will
show up if the application is running under Linux,
and so on.

5.  GUI components are drawn very quickly. This is
knows as "native performance“
 In AWT, native code, written in a language like C or
C++
 GUI components look natural for the users of each
operating systems. This is knows as "native look
and feel“
 AWT only include components that exist in ALL
supported operating systems(least common
denominator) so the problem came from here

6. SWING
o Part of the Java standard API
o It includes classes like JButton, JTextFiled, JMenu,
and JTree
 Advantage
 It still relies on AWT classes for event handling
but for rendering components it relies on the
Java2D API to draw components from scratch
 Does not suffer from the "least common
denominator“ because it have Swing classes
defining how to draw Swing controls from scratch
 "platform independence“

7.  "Pluggable look and feel" that allows controls to
appear with a different look and feel if desired
 Swing components follow the Model-View-
Controller (MVC) paradigm, and thus can
provide a much more flexible UI.
 Disadvantage
 Rendering Swing components is slower than
rendering AWT components because they are
drawn from scratch
 Large memory
 When a change happen to the operating system
so it doesn’t update automatically

8. SWT
(STANDARD WIDGET TOOLKIT)
 It is NOT part of the Java standard API
 Advantage
 SWT tries to combine the best of AWT and
Swing
 There is a native component written for each
operating system called Java Native interface
 Use less memory
 Rich set of widgets which used to make good
looking
 Run faster
 When a change happen to the operating system
so it update automatically

9.  Disadvantage
• Also you have to build separate installers for
every operating systems which you are to
support.
• Native look and Feel support

10. SUMMARY
 There is a big debate between Java developers
about whether Swing or SWT is better
 So it up to you to choose the most appropriate GUI
library (SWT or Swing ) to your application

11. REFERENCE :
 http://www.developer.com/java/other/article.php/217
9061/Swing-and-SWT-A-Tale-of-Two-Java-GUI-
Libraries.htm
 http://forum.codecall.net/lounge/37501-swt-vs-
swing-debate.html
 http://www.ahmadsoft.org/articles/swingswt/swings
wt.html
 http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t63186.html
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ND16H-ew_4

12. Thank you 