Windows Application Starting Point

Question

Does a basic (and best practice) framework (or netbeans like project) exist for a java windows application that would include menuing and initial windows classes?
I have decided to create a application in java and it will be a windows gui application. I understand how to do this but it seems like this would be something someone else has already done. Kind of a starting point for an application. Does something like this exists? I searched online but didn't find anything. Maybe this is because I'm not sure what I'm asking for.

Answer 1

I haven't seen any nice GUI frameworks for Java, beyond what Java already gives you. It would depend somewhat on what the app does. And you have to decide if you want to use Swing or SWT. Based on a previous thread, it would seem there are also some GUI builder tools out there, if you don't want to hand code it, but they won't produce very nice code; they just help prevent you from having to write it yourself. If this is your first jump into Java GUI, here is a quick Hello World app I just threw together in using Swing; it's a starting point anyway, and might help you get going:
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JMenu;
import javax.swing.JMenuBar;
import javax.swing.JMenuItem;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class HelloWorld {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          // Code that affects the GUI should be run on the Event Dispatch thread;
          // Calling launchUI() using SwingUtilities.invokeLater(...) takes care of this.
          SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    launchUI();
     private static void launchUI() {
          final JFrame frame = new JFrame("Hello World");
          JPanel panel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
          JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World!");
          panel.add(label);
          panel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(20, 20, 20, 20));
          JMenuBar menuBar = new JMenuBar();
          JMenu menu = new JMenu("File");
          JMenuItem menuItem = new JMenuItem("Exit");
          menuItem.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
               public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
                    // This action will be fired when the Exit menu item is selected;
                    // firing off a Window Closing event is basically the same thing
                    // pressing the window close button in the corner does.
                    WindowEvent windowClosingEvent = new WindowEvent(frame, WindowEvent.WINDOW_CLOSING);
                    frame.getToolkit().getSystemEventQueue().postEvent(windowClosingEvent);
          menu.add(menuItem);
          menuBar.add(menu);
          frame.setJMenuBar(menuBar);
          frame.setContentPane(panel);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          frame.pack();
          frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);     // this centers the frame
          frame.setVisible(true);
}