WindowBuilder Pro Achieves Ready For IBM Rational Software Validation

The providers of one of the most popular GUI Builder tools for Eclipse, Instantiations, just got WindowBuilder Pro validated as "Ready for IBM Rational Software". Having used the tool extensively over the past few years, I was interested to find out what this validation actually means for Instantiations, as well as what the future holds for WindowBuilder Pro.

If you're not familiar with WindowBuilder Pro, let me provide a brief introduction to the tool. Where Netbeans has Matisse as a GUI builder tool, Eclipse had been lacking in the area of a quality tool for fast UI development, until the launch of WindowBuilder in 2004. The tool supports  the Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT Designer™), Java™ Swing (Swing Designer™) and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT Designer™). The code generation is cleaner than what I was used to from similiar tools, and I still use it for rapid GUI development.

"We are very pleased to receive Ready for IBM Rational software validation. Our team has worked hard to maintain WindowBuilder Pro as the leading GUI building tool available for Eclipse, and we're thrilled that IBM recognizes all of our hard work," said Eric Clayberg, Sr. Vice President of Product Development, Instantiations. "We are committed to continuing to make the best product out there by listening to our customers' needs, and staying on top of the latest technology."

The idea of the validation is to differentiate software as one that can be effectively integrated with products based on the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform products - an open and modular set of tools and best practices for developing software tools and systems. This platform includes Rational Application Developer.

There are some pretty neat additions being added to the tool in the near future. For example, we'll see support the the  Swing Application Framework (JSR 296) and Swing Data Binding (JSR 295). As well as that, support for the new Eclipse 3.4 APIs , SWT Nebula Widgets and MigLayout .

James is a DZone Zone Leader and has posted 231 posts at DZone. You can read more from them at their website.