[javajosh]

Java still ships and supports Swing/AWT - which is still what most desktop applications use to render a UI, even IntelliJ. I haven't worked with it in a very long time, but there used to be tooling support for alternative platforms like web browsers. Angular feels a bit like a spiritual successor to Swing.

These days I feel like React Native is your best bet for open cross-platform GUI. Its a nifty idea: your app still runs in JavaScript but the rendering layer is replaced with something platform specific. There are some big warts (performance is NOT uniform) but its probably the best way for someone with frontend chops to leverage their skills for other platforms at this point. (Although for desktop Electron might actually be just as good or better, too.)

[vips7L]

I tried to use swing a year or so ago. It wasn’t a great time. I’d probably go with JavaFX or compose multi platform if I did it again.

[hasbot]

Well sure it takes a bit of time and study to learn it but it's a totally viable cross-platform UI toolkit.

[vips7L]

Oh I agree it’s viable! It just wasn’t pleasurable to work in. I’m looking forward to trying JavaFX when the time comes :)

[datavirtue]

I hope you tried it with the NetBeans visual designer. That is basically Java's Visual Studio.

FX is not flushed out. Though it does have some data binding, which is all manual in Swing.