What is the performance hit from using SWT_AWT Bridge in Eclipse RCP

Question

I am building an Eclipse RCP application that will eventually have section for NASA Worldwind AWT component. I will be using the SWT_AWT bridge to get the worldwind component embedded in an RCP application. I am trying to decide whether I should write other components using SWT, or use Swing all the way and embed everything using SWT_AWT bridge. The latter would allow me to use Swing, but not sure what the performance implications are?

Answer 1

If you are going to write an RCP application then it is best to stick to the native concepts and use SWT.

When you are going to write everything in Swing then there will be a performance penalty. How much, as always, depends on the hardware you are using. With todays hardware, assuming NASA has the funds, it would not be all that relevant.

What would be more relevant is the difference in UI. SWT renders with native widgets, Swing does not.

A good read is this article on the Swing in RCP [1]

[1] http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Swing-SWT-Integration/