This is some seriously good news for both GWT developers, and more to the point, junior developers who were a little trepid about coding GWT user interfaces.

By the way, "free" is a relative term. There's always a license agreement involved.

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In early August, Google acquired Instantiations, a company known for its focus on Eclipse Java developer tools, including GWT Designer. We're happy to announce today that we're relaunching the following former Instantiations products under the Google name and making them available to all developers at no charge:

• GWT Designer
  Powerful Eclipse-based development tools that enable Java developers to quickly create Ajax user interfaces using Google Web Toolkit (GWT)


• CodePro AnalytiX
  Comprehensive automated software code quality and security analysis tools to improve software quality, reliability, and maintainability


• WindowBuilder Pro
  Java graphical user interface designer for Swing, SWT, GWT, RCP, and XWT UI frameworks


• WindowTester Pro
  Test GUI interactions within Java client rich applications for the SWT and Swing UI frameworks

http://googlewebtoolkit.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-relaunches-instantiations.html

I just downloaded the plugins and they are really awesome. They can be used to build GWT, GWT-Ext, SmartGWT, Swing, SWT, JFace, RCP....

I even opened an old test class wich had a JFrame creation on an static main method and the plugin reconigzed it and allowed me to add new components on the frame!

 

So, Lautaro, when are you sending us the tutorial on the topic to publish on TSS???
(I'm serious. I'd love to see a tutorial or two on the topic, or even an opinion piece on your experience.)

I´ll try to do something this week... buy I can´t make a promise :) I´m really overloaded with work :(

Best regards!

 

So, Lautaro, when are you sending us the tutorial on the topic to publish on TSS???
(I'm serious. I'd love to see a tutorial or two on the topic, or even an opinion piece on your experience.)

 

Here you have a first part:

http://blog.oxenstudio.com.ar/2010/09/windowbuilder-pro-brief-sample-part-1.html

I´ll try to continue it in the following days.

Best regards

Lautaro

So, Lautaro, when are you sending us the tutorial on the topic to publish on TSS???
(I'm serious. I'd love to see a tutorial or two on the topic, or even an opinion piece on your experience.)

The second part is ready. Here I explain bindings on Swing components.

Did you saw the first one?

Regards

 

Lautaro

Sorry, I forgot the link:

http://blog.oxenstudio.com.ar/2010/10/windowbuilder-pro-brief-sample-part-2.html

 

Finally, the last step:

 

http://blog.oxenstudio.com.ar/2010/10/windowbuilder-pro-brief-sample-part-3.html

 

It's a shame that the Instantiations tools grinds to a halt when the GUI gets complex. They have serious performance problems. It also annoys the hell out of me that I payed up for the crap just before they got bought up.

Hopefully Google will fix the nasty bugs and the lackluster performance.

I would assume that the tool only supports the standard GWT component set?  I know there are some other component sets out there but I am surprised that GWT still doesn't have many components to rival some of the other frameworks (ZK, Primefaces, etc.).

I would assume that the tool only supports the standard GWT component set?  I know there are some other component sets out there but I am surprised that GWT still doesn't have many components to rival some of the other frameworks (ZK, Primefaces, etc.).

GWT Designer supports all of the standard GWT components as well as several popular add-on libraries including GWT-Ext, EXT GWT (GXT) and SmartGWT. Most popular components are represented by one or more of the above.

Reminds me of VisualAge for Java, where 'shaking a bean' on the GUI screen could cause the processor to block for twenty minutes. Too bad.

It's a shame that the Instantiations tools grinds to a halt when the GUI gets complex.

 I used GWT Designer 6 months back to build pretty complex UI. Never had any issues.

It's a shame that the Instantiations tools grinds to a halt when the GUI gets complex. They have serious performance problems. It also annoys the hell out of me that I payed up for the crap just before they got bought up.

Hopefully Google will fix the nasty bugs and the lackluster performance.

In general, this has not been our experience at all. We have used it with extremely complex UIs with hundreds of components. We have seen specific cases that were slow for specific reasons, but we have generally been able to optimize those cases once we had an actual test case in hand. If you are seeing it slow down on some class, consider posting it to our support forum (or sending it by email) for us to analyze (obfuscate it as needed...we don't need to see your actual source, but we do need to see something that will slow it down).

While I'm not saying there aren't any, we are not aware of any "nasty bugs" in the product itself, so please consider sending these to support as well. A bug we are unaware of will certainly go unfixed. A bug we are aware of will generally be fixed very quickly (as has always been the case). 

BTW, the fact that you *paid* for it means that you continue to have access to customer-only support channels in addition to just the on-line support forums.

I guess the transition is still in progress. I have been Instantiations customer so far and expected to hear about this (the free tool release) update directly from Instantiations or Google. They say its free but I do not see any license information apart from the GWT's Apache v2.0. If Google releases these tools under Apache license then they must release the source code of these tools as well which I could not locate from their website.

This raises questions about Eric's involvement. I guess he's a Software Engg Manager with Google now. Will he continue to drive development with Google or are we getting a new leadership here?

Also, the RCP, SWT and Swing designers are no longer available as stand-alone products. Does this mean that they would not receive the same amount of attention as GWT designer considering Google's focus on GWT?

What about support? Will Google provide the same commercial quality support for a free tool?

And what happened to CodePro Profiler? Is it being discontinued or is it being merged with AnalytiX?

 

I guess the transition is still in progress. I have been Instantiations customer so far and expected to hear about this (the free tool release) update directly from Instantiations or Google. They say its free but I do not see any license information apart from the GWT's Apache v2.0. If Google releases these tools under Apache license then they must release the source code of these tools as well which I could not locate from their website.

Each product is now under the standard Google Terms of Service (TOS) which is included in the docs (see http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/tools/wbpro/tos.html for example) and within the products themselves (seen during installation, for example). Google has not made any announcements about open sourcing any of these tool (under Apache or any other license). Since the products are now free, they now longer have an explicit license and activation requirement. So much for all of those bootleg copies and illegal serial number key gens out there ;-)

This raises questions about Eric's involvement. I guess he's a Software Engg Manager with Google now. Will he continue to drive development with Google or are we getting a new leadership here?

Eric (me) remains very much involved with all of the former-Instantiations tools ;-) Check out our product forums and you will see that I have not reduced my involvement in the slightest.

Also, the RCP, SWT and Swing designers are no longer available as stand-alone products. Does this mean that they would not receive the same amount of attention as GWT designer considering Google's focus on GWT?

SWT Designer and Swing Designer were offered as ala carte products at Instantiations because they were sold commercially and folks only wanted to buy the minimum they needed. At Google, we decided to simplify our offerings and reduce the number of products. Since all of the components of WindowBuilder are now free, you can now just get it all at once. The sub products are still distinguished on the update site, so you can pick and choose the sub products, if you really want to. RCP Developer was basically just a bundle of SWT Designer and WindowTester/SWT which are both now freely available as part of one of the other products, so there was no reason to preserve that configuration.

What about support? Will Google provide the same commercial quality support for a free tool?

As to support, You will have to judge that for yourself over time. We have certainly not let up in the slightest since we joined Google. In fact, as you might expect, we have been doing even more support since our relaunch than when we were at Instantiations. Customers with paid support contracts will continue to receive the same level of support post-acquisition as before and continue to have access to special customer-only support channels (as was the case pre-acquisition).

And what happened to CodePro Profiler? Is it being discontinued or is it being merged with AnalytiX?

CodePro Profiler is not being merged with AnalytiX and is still available to pre-acquisition customers. Google is still evaluating what to do about CodePro Profiler as a product longer term.

Hello Eric, I have a lot of experience with GWT, but I am new with GWT Designer. I read that it is now "Free for developers". What could happen if I want to sell a software developed with GWT Designer? I need to buy a commercial license? I am sorry but I dont have this clear, Thank you for your reply...

Wow, I remember when we worked with WindowBuilder Pro on Visual Smalltalk. The tool was really great for GUI development. Helped us a lot on our development. Nice to see it released in this way. These people have been active for so long. Congrats Eric.

Wow, I remember when we worked with WindowBuilder Pro on Visual Smalltalk. The tool was really great for GUI development. Helped us a lot on our development. Nice to see it released in this way. These people have been active for so long. Congrats Eric.

Thanks! It has been a long, exciting run and has now gotten even better! I and my team are greatly looking forward to taking WindowBuider (and our other tools) to the next level.

Eric, What happened to Help Composer? 

I found the answer in the forum. But I am curious as to how this works?  "For all practical purposes, its functionality (TOC/HTML editing) has been replicated and replaced by functions in Eclipse itself."

Starting in Eclipse 3.4, Eclipse included a TOC editor that replicated the functionality in the Help Composer TOC editor. Eclipse also includes an HTML editor that replicates the functionality in the Help Composer help page editor. As a result, Instantiations stopped working on help Composer a couple of years ago, and it was planned for sunsetting. Google has no interest in continuing to work on it given the limited benefit relative to what is built into Eclipse itself.