ZWT: A new cross-platform graphical interface framework for Java applications

The Java Programming Language revolutionized the world of software development in the last decades. Thanks to its portability, Java makes it possible to develop software that can run everywhere, in a truly cross-platform computing environment. Although running the same Java code anywhere works smoothly on major desktop and server platforms, this becomes much more complicated when different devices and platforms, such as smartphones or embedded systems, are taken into account. Furthermore, even if we consider devices that natively support the Java programming language, the same application may not run without re-writing part or the entire source code. This is mainly due to the existence of platform specific libraries for accessing input/output peripherals or system-specific features. In particular, the main limitation is usually associated to the different APIs that must be used for programming the Graphical User Interface (GUIs). In this paper, we present a novel framework that can be used by developers to write Java applications with portable GUIs that are truly platform-independent and thus can run on different systems such as PCs, Workstations, Android devices or mobile phones and embedded systems with Java MicroEdition (Java ME).