WindowBuilder Pro – Incorrect display of content pane and element frames in the design view

Question

I need some help with following problem:

Problem:

In the design view frames that appear around selected Swing-elements are not displayed at their correct positions. Also the content pane is not located at its right position inside the window (JFrame). It seems no matter whether layout is used (e. a. BorderLayout, GroupLayout).

For example, the frame of a selected button is display many pixels above or beside the button. In this case, if you want to select a GUI component by clicking it with your courser you should not click on the graphical representation of that element but some pixels above or where ever the frame could be – you have to consider the offset of the shifting. By nearly every refresh of the design view (F5) or if you shift some components in the content pane the offset of the wrong placed frames changes for some pixels – sometimes the frames are above, sometimes below or beside.

Are there other persons with this problem?

Are there persons that don‘t have these problems with WindowBuilder Pro with Ubuntu 12.04?

What could cause this error and how it might be solved?

System environment under which the error occurs:

• One desktop PC / One laptop
• Ubuntu 12.04 (with Unity) / Kubuntu 12.04 (with KDE)
• Oracle Java 7
• Eclipse 64 Bit:
  • Eclipse 4.3 Java EE / Eclipse 4.3 Standard / Eclipse 4.3 Modeling Tools
  • Installed under „/opt/eclipse“. The error occurs, no matter whether the folders belong to root or to normal user.
• WindowBuilder Pro 1.6.0 (Eclipse plugin installed with eclipse software manager)
• I also tried WindowBuilder Pro in Ubuntu 13.04 in VirtualBox. But as soon I am moving the mouse on the palette eclipse crashes.

Hints:

• The error seems to occur only, if the content pane is not correctly positioned inside the window (JFrame). Sometimes the content pane is out of place by a few dozen pixels, sometimes it is as wide as the JFrame itself, sometimes it is little bigger than the window.

• The error does not occur with Windwos 7 and with Xubuntu 13.04 under otherwise identical conditions (I did not tested Xubuntu 12.04). But the error occures with Ubuntu 12.04 and Kubuntu 12.04.

• My workaround is to use WindowBuilder Pro with Xubuntu 13.04 installed in VirtualBox. Of course this can not be a permanent solution, because I want to continue to use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

• I have read http://help.eclipse.org/indigo/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.wb.doc.user%2Fhtml%2Ffaq.html.

• Here the same problem is described, but there are no answers: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15818379/windowbuilder-eclipse-away-from-the-actual-component?rq=1

• Here a possible workaround is descibed: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=417224

Answer 1

I have been using Eclipse on Ubuntu for a while. I used both Eclipse Juno and Kepler on Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, and 14.04. This error was there on all of those. I am used to living with it. I did not do a through research on that though. I'm also having some other minor problems. One for example: The toolbars do not update themselves correctly. The buttons on the toolbar are not rendered, and they show up when the mouse hovers on it.

I found out that Eclipse is no as stable on Linux as it is on Windows. I hope they post fixes on these issues soon.