Is using a visual graphics editor undesirable for teaching a graphical interface?
I've been playing around with the netbeans visual editor for java and it seems very intuitive and easy to use, but I can't help but think: is it bad for my learning? Do I have to get my hands dirty and do everything by hand? How do professionals in this field handle UI design?
What would you guys recommend to me?
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The main disadvantage of GUI developers is that they make it easy to complete simple tasks and it is very difficult to complete complex tasks. It's just like building a website with a real design tool versus using a simple website builder like iWeb or FrontPage.
The three most important topics in a GUI are learning the event model, layout model, and the intricacies of each widget. GUI designers isolate you from the latter two and limit your exposure to your first.
In the long run, this is detrimental to the things you can achieve and therefore detrimental to your mastery of GUI design.
Also, it is possible that behavior that is very important to users (such as deleting one widget in response to a change in another) is quite difficult to write, especially with auto-generated code. Complex GUIs often rely on models, and GUI developers often go through everything together, so it's much easier to end up with horrible unsupported code.
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For design training, I find a visual graphics editor to be great. Design has nothing to do with the tools you use to create your design. If your goal is to learn how to create a nice user interface, a visual editor can be very helpful.
For learning how to create a GUI application, I think it might be harmful, although it really depends on the person. At some point, I really think you need to cheat so you can know exactly how widgets interact with business objects and with the user.
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I would recommend that for every new component you use, you first manually sign it at least once to make sure you understand. But there is no need to get redundant and just spend all the time coding locations and sizes when the visual editor does it for you. I'd just like to make sure you understand child forms and parent forms and leave the repetitive technical stuff to the editor.
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Understand the underlying code. If that means practicing writing a form box, so be it.
However, don't waste time on it or hurt yourself. It is hardly ever required to actually get in and play with basic generated code.
I would definitely not recommend absorbing it too much. This is simple and repetitive code that is usually quite easy to understand when the time actually shows it.
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I recommend getting your hands dirty with the underlying pieces of code. The problem with Visual Editors is that they can often generate impure code or code that is difficult to understand when someone else has to make changes.
Once you have a clear understanding of JComponents, you can play around with the visual editor to understand the code that the editor generates. I recommend playing around with the examples provided by the Sun Website for Java GUI program.
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