Which one is better for creating GUI using swings?? Manual coding or IDE drag and drop???

[Madhusudhan Rmgm]

I am beginner in java application developing....
Which one is better for creating a GUI using swings either Manual coding or IDE(NetBeans,eclipse)..? drag and dropping components to frame v/s manually coding from scratch!!!
I want frame with many components like label, textfield, buttons etc... When i click a button some group of components are to be loaded on frame and onclicking another button old components shud be replaced by new components...

[Ulf Dittmer]

Welcome to JavaRanch.

That's almost a religious issue like "emacs vs. vi" or "Windows vs. OS X". It certainly does not have one single right answer. So the question for you is: "better" in what sense?

Either way, if you're a beginner I advise to start with a GUI that has few components, not many, as you said. And for that I would advise not to use a GUI designer, so that you actually learn the Swing API.

Note, by the way, that the framework is called "Swing", not "swings".

[Randall Twede]

i agree with Ulf. i don't use an IDE. i use Notepad++ then compile and run using command prompt. i will only use an IDE if i miraculously get a job and they force me to use it.