A more native look and feel for SWT applications on Windows Vista

Sam Ramji announced a new Microsoft Open Source Software Lab initiative to improve interoperability between SWT and Windows Vista, so SWT-based Java applications can take full advantage of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). To users, these applications should look and behave even more like native Windows applications.

Here’s what Ramji said.

…Among a range of other opportunities (which we’re still working on), we discovered that Steve Northover (the SWT team lead) had gotten requests to make it easy for Java developers to write applications that look and feel like native Windows Vista. He and a small group of developers built out a prototype that enables SWT to use Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). We’re committing to improve this technology with direct support from our engineering teams and the Open Source Software Lab, with the goal of a first-class authoring experience for Java developers.

Several messages are wrapped up in this announcement.

• Microsoft has decided to give the open-source initiative more support.
• For the time being, at least, Microsoft has chosen to back SWT directly over its rival Swing.
• Desktop Java may still have a future.

It’s only a drop in the ocean, but I’d love to know what Sun makes of it. Is Sun working more closely with Microsoft to give Swing a more native look and feel, or has it given up on investing further in the desktop? We’ll see. So far, each new Java release has brought the look and feel closer to native.

Sources

• Microsoft wants to improve Eclipse