suggestions for declarative GUI programming in Java

Question

I wonder if there are any suggestions for declarative GUI programming in Java. (I abhor visual-based GUI creator/editor software, but am getting a little tired of manually instantiating JPanels and Boxes and JLabels and JLists etc.)

That's my overall question, but I have two specific questions for approaches I'm thinking of taking:

1. JavaFX: is there an example somewhere of a realistic GUI display (e.g. not circles and rectangles, but listboxes and buttons and labels and the like) in JavaFX, which can interface with a Java sourcefile that accesses and updates various elements?

2. Plain Old Swing with something to parse XUL-ish XML: has anyone invented a declarative syntax (like XUL) for XML for use with Java Swing? I suppose it wouldn't be hard to do, to create some code based on STaX which reads an XML file, instantiates a hierarchy of Swing elements, and makes the hierarchy accessible through some kind of object model. But I'd rather use something that's well-known and documented and tested than to try to invent such a thing myself.

3. JGoodies Forms -- not exactly declarative, but kinda close & I've had good luck with JGoodies Binding. But their syntax for Form Layout seems kinda cryptic.

edit: lots of great answers here! (& I added #3 above) I'd be especially grateful for hearing any experiences any of you have had with using one of these frameworks for real-world applications.

p.s. I did try a few google searches ("java gui declarative"), just didn't quite know what to look for.

Answer 1

You might have a look at javabuilders; it uses YAML to build Swing UIs.

A simple example from the manual [PDF]:

JFrame:     name: myFrame     title: My Frame     content:         - JLabel:             name: myLabel2             text: My First Label         - JLabel:             name: myLabel2             text: My Second Label 

Alternatively:

JFrame:     name: myFrame     title: My Frame     content:         - JLabel: {name: myLabel2, text: My First Label}         - JLabel: {name: myLabel2, text: My Second Label} 

Or even:

JFrame(name=myFrame,title=My Frame):     - JLabel(name=myLabel2, text=My First Label)     - JLabel(name=myLabel2, text=My Second Label)