How can I create a “modern looking” Java desktop application?

Question

Similar questions to this are asked periodically, but many of these answers are outdated.

I need to build a cross-platform desktop application in Java with a GUI of comp

Answer 1

Modern Javascript frameworks (ExtJS, Dojo, etc...) offer the same widgets richness or more (Excel like grids for instance), a wider variety of L&F and usually fit better with the OS of the user. Users are also very comfortable with their browsers and, hey, "modern stuff" is on the web, and the modern web today is HTML+Javascript.

The overhead of converting an app to "web like" is minimal. An embedded Jetty can remain really small and disk space has become much less of an issue.

There are additional benefits going down this route for the future evolutions of the application.

• Suddenly, the desktop app becomes a server app, which can be accessed from another desktop. We were able top promote a desktop app to 'portal' in a matter of weeks.
• Rewriting the app in terms of (Ajax) web services provides an easy transition to creating a full REST (or SOAP...) services stack. The app can then be integrated to other applications, easily monitored externally, etc...
• Support of other devices (smart phones, tablets,...) becomes much easier, by concentrating on the UI layer only
• As the app grows, separation of concerns is cleaner; developers working on the UI do not have to mess with low level code.
• There are a lot of excellent JS/HTML designers and developers that do not program in Java.

EDIT

3 years later this has become extremely easy thanks to Electron