Instantiations announced the release of GWT Designer 5.1. This major version upgrade of the product includes support for Google Web Toolkit (GWT) 1.5, released August 28, as well as basic support for GWT-Ext and MyGWT, both popular widget kits.

GWT Designer has had significant growth since its launch in 2006 and is Instantiations’ highest volume product with tens of thousands of users from over 95 countries. GWT Designer is an Eclipse-based graphical user interface (GUI) creation tool to be used with GWT. It supports such features as drag-and-drop GUI building and bi-directional code generation, providing several useful wizards that help make GWT development easier.

“The GWT team has been very excited about tools like GWT Designer and we are pleased with its increased popularity, as well as the release of a new version of the tool to coincide with GWT 1.5,” said Bruce Johnson, GWT Engineering Manager at Google.

“GWT is a preeminent framework that enables Java developers to write high-performance AJAX applications. Google has made some major enhancements to 1.5 that validate their commitment to the product and allow us to make GWT Designer that much better,” said Eric Clayberg, senior vice president of product development and co-founder of Instantiations, Inc. “We don’t just keep tabs on Google’s GWT updates, but we’re always listening to our customers and they are letting us know which third-party widget-kits we should support. I believe our responsiveness has significantly strengthened the product and is the reason for GWT Designer’s continued popularity.”

GWT Designer 5 New Features
GWT Designer is based on the award-winning WindowBuilder Pro technology and allows developers to focus on creating and testing rich Internet applications using Eclipse, Java and GWT without worrying about the complexities of AJAX coding. GWT Designer uses wizards, WYSIWYG builders, composites, layouts and controls.

GWT Designer 5.1 includes some exciting new features, such as:

• Support for upgraded GWT 1.5, including Java 1.5 Support
• Basic integration support for the popular MyGWT and GWT-Ext widget packages
• Backward compatibility with GWT 1.4.62

Features of GWT 1.5
Google added enhancements to GWT 1.5, including:

• Java 1.5 Support
• Compiler Enhancements to Improve Application Speed
• UI Library Additions: Widget Animations, Visual Themes
• DOM API for simplified DOM Programming
• Internationalization Improvements: Bi-directional, Pluralization
• Accessibility Support
• Enhancements to the JRE Emulation Library
• For a complete list of what’s new in GWT 1.5 go here.

Fore more information on Instantiations contact Marta George, marta_george@instantiations.com at Instantiations.