Ok, right now I am currently using eclipse, however I can change to whatever if there is something else that would be better for this. But I have made a number of java applications, but they all simply use the command line for doing their user input and output. However, I have been interested in learning how to program graphical user interfaces in java, and was wondering if somebody could point me in the right direction, with some easy to understand and follow tutorials.

Also, once I have done that, what about making a java program that can be easily executed? (I know that this would probably make it OS dependant, by making files such as .exe, and such), but is there an easy way to do this? Do I simply make a program in some other language that acts as some sort of a wrapper around the java application somehow? I am just curious as to how to do this in order to make an application that is easily distributable and runnable over a number of platforms (I don't want people to have to worry about people going to the command line and running a ton of stuff in order to get it to work)

Thanks for the help,
Brian

i would definately check out AWT and SWING for GUI dev...

as far as compiling JAVA to be machine-dependent... it's a little abstract as it defies the purpose of JAVA ("Compile once, run everywhere")

maybe check out:
http://www.thisiscool.com/gcc_mingw.htm

look into the gcj varieties... good luck if you're still looking

Eclipse is a good java IDE if you just want to code Java without creating an interface because you will need to code it all (yes i know it takes a lot of time and sometimes a little bit boring).

Well there is another IDE that will be your perfect solution. It is Neatbeans! It has became one of the post famous and more used programming environment not only for Java, also for C/C++ applications and for creating UML diagrams and generating code from it (since version 6.0).

Netbeans allows you to easy create GUI by just dragging to the screen components such as textfields, labels, buttons, radio buttons, text areas, panels, and many other cool components. It support both the java.awt interface or the javax.swing. I heard that Netbeans won a prize because their GUI's building tool not only allows you to put components, it also have auto-align and auto-size functions that makes very easy to create professional user interfaces in minutes. It also has a preview button to easily view your interface without compiling you whole application.

Well this are only a few advantages of netbeans, I only mention these few because you ask about building interfaces; but it has many other features as managing classes in packages, to create test clases, deploy the application by creating the JAR file automatically, debugging, templates, and more!

The netbeans site is:
www.netbeans.org The only IDE you need for developing any application!

There are 2 main types of java-based GUI:

1. AWT/Swing elements are used in standalone Java applications and Java applets.
Many commercial IDE (like JBuilder) provide a very good builders for AWT/Swing user interfaces. You can simply create a form and put on it all necessary AWT/Swing elements (buttons, textboxes etc.) using drag and drop method, which provides an opportunity for immediate visual control of your form.
However, you can create such forms using java.awt and javax.swing packages in you Java code.

2. HTML forms are used in WEB applications.
HTML page can be created simply using any text editor (Notepad/Wordpad). I often do this for javascript-s debugging or for some testing purposes.
I think, today the most advanced technology for java-based Web applications is Java Server Faces (JSF). It is open-source. I use JSF tags directly in Eclipse text editor: unfortunally, no immediate visual control (I need every time to redeploy the application for visualising any changes).
But I do not know any good FREE tools for creating Java-based Web interfaces.

This post has been edited by java-area: Feb 4 2008, 04:06 AM

As others said: AWT/Swing. But for a begginer, I'd suggests you download Netbeans. It has a really nice drag-and-drop feature to make basic 2D forms (and later can be used in 2D and even 3D Graphics). Make a few of these in Netbeans and look at the code. Should be under 'generated code'. just open it up and look at it. It's quite nice to have a direct example...