Recommendation for 2D graphic manager

Engines, Libraries and Tools
#1

Hello! I’m making an action RFP using Java Swing, I’ve improved the game a lot since I started but what I still don’t like is the Swing features… I lost unexpected time learning layouts, the Swing AWT threading model, etc., and I still see Java Swing as ugly and I’m not sure of how much I’ll be able to decorate it with my own graphics.

So, I’m not asking advice for a Game Framework (I practically made my own) but for a Graphic library… like SDL in C, which I could use for fullscreen gaming, but I would like it to have a nice UI model (buttons, labels, etc). Is there something better than Swing for that? If not, can Java Swing be “tweaked” to simulate a game interface? (eg. change system resolution, fullscreen mode, etc.)

Thanks!

#2

Yes, swing is ugly

Use http://insubstantial.github.io/insubstantial/substance/

your swing will be pretty ! ;D

#3

I’ve been using Swing for a long time, and in some cases it even speeds up development (given that you know it well, and can use UI builders for it). But for games it doesn’t fit very well.

Lately I switched to LWJGL as a OpenGL wrapper, basically using OpenGL as my graphics library. That works fine, and OpenGL is a very useful library for all sorts of graphic display.

There are UI toolkits for OpenGL but I have no experience with them yet, my game only needed some buttons and that was easy to code.