developerWorks: Plug a Swing-based Development Tool into Eclipse

"The Eclipse Platform provides a robust set of services and APIs for tool development. It smoothes the integration between tools from disparate vendors, creating a seamless environment for different types of development work.

"One of the software components of the Eclipse Platform is SWT. Although not a core component set of the Platform, SWT is integral because it provides a set of Java-based GUI widgets to the product and plug-in developers. SWT is operating system independent and very portable, yet its underlying JNI interface delivers native Platform look-and-feel and performance.

"Overall, SWT provides a good solution for developers and tool vendors who want to write plug-ins that operate well in the Platform's various frameworks and that are visually appealing. However, SWT suffers from its rather low level of interoperability with Java's Swing GUI widgets. For instance, Swing and SWT employ completely different event handling mechanisms. This difference often makes a GUI that is a hybrid of Swing and SWT unusable..."

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