Make Your Swing App Go Native, Part 1
Java applications, in particular those written with the Swing toolkit, have a reputation for feeling clunky and out of place, as if they don\'t belong on your computer. Often your users can\'t put their finger on wha
Tutorial Details:
What is a Native-Feeling Application?
Now first let\'s talk about what it means to feel native. A simple explanation would be that the user can\'t tell the difference between your Swing application and a native one. But that doesn\'t tell us the whole story. Like good photography, feeling native isn\'t really about doing anything. It\'s about not doing a whole bunch of things. Not being slow, not having widgets that look different, not requiring special installation procedures. In general, it\'s about not feeling any different than any other application. This includes key combos, menu placement, icons, packaging, and the correct terminology (Quit vs. Exit, Preferences vs. Options, etc.). It means all of the little details that have nothing to do with what the program actually does, but affects how the program feels. And this makes a huge difference to the users.
Most users have a favorite platform and pre-existing expectations about what buttons go where, which actions are associated with various keyboard accelerators, and hundred of other UI niceties that they take for granted. Although you can create a cross-platform application that is as simple to use and as reliable as a native application, your application is more likely to be adopted by end users if its UI meets their expectations. You will need to consider the expectations of users on each of your target platforms.
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Native, Part
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Native, Part
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