Crystal GUI for jME

Just wanted to drop a note that I've started a GUI project based on jME. I've been waiting for some generic futuristic looking HUD based GUI display to come out with no avail, both on 2d and 3d front. Also there have been a lot of discussions on swing2, what to do, replace, not replace, etc, etc…



Crystal UI is display engine independent. I plan on releasing jME based implementation first then followed by normal Swing.  It is high level OO library. The core Crystal API is extremely flexible and is being designed to be able to support very diverse sets of engines, themes, skins, data models and advanced user input devices such as 5 finger multi-touch pads and screens.



Project has been in the design phase for last few weeks, and will be for many more. I started java.net project for source code repository already developed  http://crystalui.java.net and website at http://lightbucket.org



My goal is to have a working jME based prototype by end of this year. I call jME implementation  "Crystal on a Monkey".



Let me know what you guys think.

Good luck :slight_smile:



I would suggest taking a look at FengGUI, it has some nice things in there (some not so nice).  It could be a huge start to get going…

basixs said:

Good luck :)

I would suggest taking a look at FengGUI, it has some nice things in there (some not so nice).  It could be a huge start to get going...


Yeah, I've used FengGUI before. Its nice for its purpose. Crystal is an abstract layer above that. Here is a summary how Crystal is put together.

1) Crystal public API layer
2) A crystal container engine (jME, FengGUI, java3d, swing)
3) Themes - provide look and feel, animation, behavior, physics, audio, skins, layout, etc...

So for example to use crystal on a jME project you will need 3 crystal modules: Core module,  jME engine module (a crystal to jME adapter) and a theme that provides the look & feel.

I am certainly interested in how they integrate their GUI into various engines and GUI platforms such as OpenGL, jME and others.

Sounds like a UI abstraction layer…http://www.jseamless.org

Nice, thanks for the pointer. Looks very interesting  :smiley:

BTW, that's my project. :slight_smile:



Let me know if you'd be interested in collaborating on such an endeavor.  Few people seem to care about that level of UI development.

Nice design darkfrog. Sure we can collaborate. I'm going to be installing jseamless to familiarize with the capabilities and take a looksie behind the scene a bit too.



Where can I get the OpenGL implementation?



My real motive is to implement a futurist type of UI. Very 3d, the kind you would find in Sci-fi movies, but more down to earth in terms of usability. That is why I chose to use jME as the basis, with its powerful API. May be all I need to do is use jseamless and implement a new implementation and a theme. Seems like you took similar approach I was taking:


  1. public API
  2. adaptation layer
  3. theme layer

I might be interested in this project as well, depending on how fast it's moving.



I'm working on my own scene graph/3d interface for a hobbyist game, and have just started writing some of the GUI. As a - currently - one person project I'm not really putting enough time into this part, and quickly seeing it not be very thought out. Using your approach could be very interesting.