I'm a .NET web developer, who's bought a Mac, and is interested in doing web development natively on the Mac.
I've never developed outside of the Microsoft sandbox, and I'm looking for something new, but still in web development.
I've looked into Mono, but it looks like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, am I wrong? Like for example, I can't do breakpoints on my web apps?
Here are my criteria:
say what you will about Microsoft, but I'm simply not interested in command-line setups, or weird configuration stuff, I just want it to work
I'll need a powerful IDE, as good as Visual Studio 2008. I'm particularly fond of IntelliSense, auto-correction, auto-completion, and how it all hangs togethere, and the debugging features
I know this isn't "cool", but I love strongly typed languages. I find the dynamic aspect of the next generation .NET languages really cool, but I like how it sits within a static world. I know I know, dynamic is cool, but I like strong typing OK, it brings peace to my mind.
I can definitely do without all the .NET controls, and page life cycle, I'm happy to do the front-end myself, I just want the back-end part to be as friendly, and high level as ASP.NET.
Oh, and I love all the reflection, generics, and functional stuff, especially LINQ, in C# and VB.NET.
Any ideas?
UPDATE
I appreciate any help. But just to make it clear, I'm not interested in VM solutions. To do .NET I'll just Boot Camp into Windows. I'm looking to develop natively on Mac OS X. If I'm wrong about Mono, that would be the best thing.
Otherwise something new might be fun.
UPDATE
I decided to have a look at Scala, and for fun, although it isn't web dev, AIR apps too. I tried Mono, but the IDE is still in Beta, and there's no way to use breakpoints in debugging, which is an unnecessary pain.
I am going to look at Scala, and maybe some Java frameworks too.
I would definitely take a look at Mono on OSX. There's tons of tools and you don't have to be a command line guy to use it.
For an IDE take a look at MonoDevelop which can now do
iPhone development
MonoDevelop is built on top of Gtk# which is a great GUI toolkit
Another GUI would be to WinForms, but I've never been a big fan
As for web development you can still use MonoDevelop with any of the normal toolkits:
WebForms
ASP.NET MVC
Silverlight / Moonlight
etc
For the server you can use Apache, lighttpd, etc - pick your poison!
Perhaps I'm biased as I've been using Mono since before the 0.3 days, but I'm and fan and it's definitely not like "fitting a square peg into a round hole". It has it's own libraries and ways of doing things and support for almost all of the .NET stack.
Given the constraints, I think you would be happiest with Java. It is statically typed, has good IDEs (IntelliJ, Eclipse, NetBeans) and is used a lot for web.
I read some interesting articles about Scala - But I haven't tried it myself yet.
It uses static typing and also has functional features.
There is a TextMate bundle for it and also Netbeans seems to offer good Scala support.
Why not just use VMWare or parallels.
I run Visual Studio in VMWare (on windows 2008 server) runs well
I'd look to run Visual Studio under a VM on OSX if I were you. If you're not doing fancy WPF stuff, then your development/deployment experience will be the same.
Related
As SO returns "4,476 search results for posts containing "win32 gui applications""... I'll have to ask a question that has probably been asked before but is lost in the midst of all those questions.
Currently, what are the options to write GUI applications for Win32, that have a big-enough following so that the environment offers enough and well-supported third-party tools?
I could come up with:
C++
Delphi, and possibly
RealBasic (although the fact that it's originally a Macintosh tool could result in small but noticeable issues in look 'n feel).
Besides their relative lack of well-supported third-party tools, solutions like Python + wxWidgets, or [Power|Pure|Free]Basic aren't good options: The former has too many 1.0 widgets (couldn't find a business-grade grid, for instance), and the latter are procedural languages so requires writing apps like Petzold's book with the lower productivity it entails.
Are there other solutions available?
Thank you.
Edit: Sorry for not having been precise enough: Big tools like .Net and Java are not options. I'm looking for tools that can either build a whole EXE statically (eg. Delphi) or provide a light enough runtime (VBClassic).
If you are new to programming I would suggest C# as well if you are only looking to make this app for the Windows Platform however with tools like Mono it can be ported to OS X and Linux Platforms.
Windows has their own IDE just for this called Visual Studio Express C#
Visual Studio's C#
As well as a version for C++ if you are wanting to say in that programming language.
The Mono project allows you to use C# in Linux and Mac as well as port the apps to iOS and Android
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
You Can use C++ or You can even use the .net framework to develop your windows applications. .Net framework have lots of opensource contributed modules and paid modules and well as number of resources all over the internet to speed up the development compare to other options you have mentioned.
If you are going for a windows 32 gui application, I would prefer to go with .net framework, C++.
Java Swings also another best options which is platform independent as well.
You can use Lazarus as a free alternative to Delphi. Potentially you will have a very high possibility to check its "write once, compile anywhere" motto if you later decide to port your Win32 application to Linux or MacOS. In ideal case it will just work, but in reality you would probably need some conditional defines sections.
I have a few years of experience writing Unix command line tools (no GUI experience) in python, C and C++, and only recently crossed into the GUI world (Cocoa and IOS only). I've learned quite a bit of objective-C and am getting to understand how cocoa MVC works. However, one of the apps I am developing needs a Windows version and I was wondering what a good place to start would be given that I have absolutely no Windows development experience.
I was thinking about using Visual C++ 2010 Express as my development platform (because it's free and because I don't need to learn C++). My application is relatively simple, it will have only two windows and spend most of the time running in the background. It will however need to communicate with the OS (load dll's etc) and an online server (HTTP methods) and I'm not sure whether Visual C++ Express edition gives me access to the required API's. Would a Windows Forms application suffice? Am I going about this the wrong way? Do I need to learn C#? Any advice will be appreciated.
If you are already happy with proper c++, visual Studio C++ express should suit you fine. Given that you are not making a complicated GUI, you don't even need to dip into the managed code - C++ express allows you to create proper c++ console and GUI apps. You also don't need to install the platform SDK - it is part of VS C++ express.
Not being managed C++, you will be able to share source files between your various projects. managed c++, despite the c++ in the name, really is a different enough language that it will be annoying to work with if you simultaneously have to deal with iso C++.
--
Note: The native windows API is a C api, not a C++ framework. So it does not provide a rich set of classes in a coherent framework to deal with. On the other hand, while, large, it is actually quite simple to work with.
Also: Given that you are already familiar with Mac development, there is a LGPL (iirc) package called CFLite that builds on windows and that implements the C api that underlays the Objective-C Cocoa API.
If you use its abstratcions you can share a greater part of code between windows and Mac (and other platforms).
Other C++ IDE's you might want to consider:
Code::Blocks
QT Creator
both of which can be configured to use the MINGW port of GCC to windows.
you'll be better off with c++ than c# if you need more "low-level" stuff. Loading dlls (that is, libs) is simple (pragma comment lib...), as is pure HTTP transfer and communication.
So, VC++ with windows form will suffice, and it is "very c++".
You have access to all global APIs, and loading specific apis like http requires only two lines: one to include wininet header, and other lib (libs are actually "references" to dlls).
If you go the C++ Express way then you need to install Windows SDK separately, and set it up for Visual Studio to use it. And you can't use MFC.
I would however, suggest C#, because it feels like putting little toy bricks together. Easier to debug and maintain. Problem with C# is that it has so many library functions that you can not possibly know if what you want is already made to a function. But that's why we are here :-) If you feel that something you want to do should already exist then ask a question about it. One notable feature that C# lacks is zip archives (it has something similar, but not quite). For zips you can use public libraries, like SharpZipLib or DotNetZip.
If I were you, I wouldn't jump into a whole new API so quickly. Have you considered using Python on Windows? Most of the Python packages I've seen are also available for Windows, so you'll feel at home. And if you need some GUI, you can opt for wxPython, pyGTK or something similar.
For Windows specific things, you can always use ctypes. Especially if they're as simple as loading a DLL.
have you considered approaching Adobe AIR? it allows you to deploy on Mac, Linux, Windows, iOS, etc. communicating with and launching native processes has been possible since 2.0 and the the latest 2.5 SDK can target Android OS and TVs. with your experience you should be able to pick up ActionScript3 / MXML in no time.
additionally, there are a handful of free IDEs you can use with the Flex and AIR SDKs. or, if you're a student or low-income developer, you can get a free copy of Flash Builder 4 from Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/devnet-archive/flex/free/
edit: i believe deploying AIR applications on iPhone requires Flash Professional CS5, which includes the packager for iPhone options. at the same time, i've read that AIR and other cross-compilers for iOS are painfully slow, so it's perhaps best to develop natively in Objective-C for iOS.
I want to start making a little window-based program that runs on both Linux and Windows flawlessly.
It must have a GUI. What are the things I should be reading about? I'm completely in the dark regarding this.
Thank you.
If you want to leverage your C#/.NET knowledge (IronPython,...), you should go with Mono. Its IDE is called MonoDevelop and works in Linux, Mac and Windows. You can keep using WinForms or switch to Gtk#, which is a nice wrapper around gtk+.
Also, make sure you read the application portability guidelines which covers different strategies and common pitfalls.
Enjoy!
You could try Java and run the same compiled bytecode in both places. Or try C++ with Qt or wxWidgets. With C++ though you will have to compile for each platform. Another possibility is Tcl/Tk
As a C# developer, I'd suggest Java with the Swing toolkit. NetBeans helps you get started easily, like Visual Studio.
Download, install, create a new prject, and there you have it; a form in front of you to drop controls and hook up to the code just like in VS + C#, except it's cross-platform (write once, run anywhere). And the language is very similar to C# (which was actually inspired by it). There are also countless books to help you get started with Java and GUI development in it too.
If you don't like Java for some reason, and you're willing to learn/use C++ (with extensions), have a go at Qt, and the Qt SDK, which includes a form designer as well, with a really nice IDE GUI. If you know C++, Qt should be a breeze. It's also cross-platform (write once, compile anywhere).
Good luck.
If you want to utilize your C# knowledge, you might want to have a look at Mono. But there are many, many other alternatives too.
my background: i've been developing web applications using php and javascript for the past ten years. before that, i've developed applications using turbo pascal for DOS. in my opinion application and web application development are two different kinds of development (at least it's what i think when i remember back the old days of DOS application development).
now i am in the need to go back to "normal" application development for various reasons. the application i want to build needs a GUI and it has to run on osx and windows. as mac os user it would be very nice for me to get an application as result, that really feels like an osx application. i don't need any special UI components: an explorer/finder like tree, a datagrid and some form-elements would be enough for my needs.
now the problem is, that i don't know where to start: i would classify me as newbie, because it's that long time since i last developed anything other than a web application. are there any recommendations of programming languages and gui toolkits with a not to steep learning curve? or can you recommend any book i should read for getting into cross-plattform osx/windows app development?
many thanks!
thanks everyone! i think i'll have a look at realbasic!
Edit Nov 2011 - a retraction
Most of what I say below is still true however I have now got serious reservations about recommending REALbasic for anyone trying to release commercial-quality applications. To save me remembering to edit this post later, see if RealSoftware have managed to release a robust version of their IDE using the Cocoa version of their frameworks. If not, be very cautious.
It's with a heavy heart that I write this because I still really like the language and think the framework and IDE are well-done. The problem is apparently one of under-capitalization and possibly a software development culture inside the company that consistently fails to deal with a bug regression problem. Many bugs are fixed each release but there appears to be a huge tax on the developers in the number of introduced bugs. They have a very small team for the complexity of the product, especially considering the newly released Web Edition which is effectively an entirely new platform.
It's still theoretically a great product but take advantage of the trial period, test it thoroughly on each of the platforms you plan to target and decide if you can live with any bugs you find because they may be there for a while.
REALbasic.
The language is a powerful, modern OO language that won't be hard for you to adapt to from your vaguely remembered Pascal or current JavaScript. It has most of the power of C++ without the dangerous bits that make debugging a nightmare. You will also find the IDE simpler and easier to deal with than say Visual Studio.
The IDE makes it very easy to throw together a GUI and have it just work on multiple platforms. The Pro version has one of the best cross-platform debuggers I've used and it is easy to just work (say) on a Mac and develop for Windows and Linux, compiling and testing with one click.
There is also a thriving community including many people at your level of expertise so you won't be mocked for being a newbie.
I am a professional software developer with over 25 years experience and currently mainly working in REALbasic, C++, C#, Objective-C and a bit of Ruby. For apps such as you mention, REALbasic is my tool of choice.
edit: I can't believe someone downvoted this but didn't have the guts to add a comment explaining why. I'd heard about prejudice against REALbasic but this is the first time I've encountered it. In what way was my answer inappropriate for this question?
Just to add to my cred, I've implemented cross-platform frameworks used by systems deployed to tens of thousands of end users - I have the C++ cross-platform experience to applaud someone else doing a good job and the REALbasic frameworks are very nice.
The best cross-platform tool I've dabbled in with a relatively small learning curve...especially if you're familiar with Visual Basic...is REALbasic. With REALbasic Pro you can compile a program to target Win32, Linux, and OS X from the same codebase, as long as you're not using OS-specific calls and features (which you can do with plugins or direct calls). Their support has been pretty responsive to my questions, the personal edition (which compiles to only the single target platform you'd downloaded the IDE for) is free for Linux and inexpensive for other platforms, but really you might want to download and try it out. One IDE, relatively inexpensive, and can compile native applications on OS X, Windows, and Linux...it's less hassle, and for me that's important when you want to get a job done.
I'd advise against C and Qt and would also recommend REALbasic.
With your background in Pascal and probably JavaScript you'll feel much more comfortable with REALbasic. I've done a lot of coding in Pascal and C/C++ - where Pascal guides you to avoid programming mistakes, C lets you step right in, even invites you, and then you'll have a hard time figuring out why it went wrong. Qt is a very abstract framework and requires you to learn a lot before you can get something working, just like with C. When compared to the easyness we used to have with TP back then.
RB is much more like Pascal in this regard. And its IDE is quite modern in regards to supporting your programming, with an easy-to-use GUI designer, straight-forward editor to fill in the gaps for handling UI events, code completion, etc.
Only when you get into huge program sizes, RB loses some of its appeal because it is missing tools to give you a good overview of complex class interactions etc.
Another thing is that Qt is more likely to cause ugly-looking Mac apps than RB would. RB visually guides you to get it all aligned nicely - in Qt you have to work with numbers, offsets, etc. to position your objects (at least it was that way when I used Qt 2 years ago).
I've written quite a few x-platform apps in RB and am pretty happy with the results.
You won't probably write those super-nice looking apps that compete with the best on the open small business market, but if you just want to get some solid code working, with an easy-to-design UI that's acceptable to the average user, give RB a try.
It's not free, though. But its rather small community is on your side - they're eager to help, instead of bashing everyone who's trying to talk sense :)
I'm new here but picked up on this thread through the REALbasic User Group. I think my position was similar to yours. I did website design for my work, using mostly javascript (with a little php, not much). I had a Pascal and BASIC background. I'd dabbled it C but didn't like the level of detail you needed to monitor it. It reminded me too much of assembly (which I still have nightmares about from my high-school/college days).
I was looking for a cross-platform language, with a familiar feel to it, but initially started with VB because it was free. I prefer programming in MacOS however, so I tried REALbasic. I found that REALbasic's UI builder was much easier to use than VB's. I'd echo other comments that the community is the most responsive of any user groups I've been involved with. I've since used REALbasic and my Mac to make several programs that over 100 users use every day at my work (on PCs, mostly XP and 2000). I've received compliments on the polish and ease of use of these programs. You DO have to remember to adjust the 'little' things to make it look right cross platform (ie: default button placement is opposite on PC vs. Mac, button sizes are different on Linux, etc). Many people have donated custom classes that do this stuff for you though.
People seem to assume that a "BASIC" language cannot be powerful enough for their purposes. While it is BASIC at it's core (with For..Next, Do..While, and If..Then commands), it ain't your daddy's BASIC. It's much more OOP than anything else I've used, based upon an event-driven structure, which for me was easy to pick up. They have a free trial, so grab a demo and run through the tutorial. If you get stuck, ask for questions on the NUG or Forums at the website and you'll likely get an answer quickly.
You may be interested in the following questions and answers:
Cross-platform development - Go with a cross-platform UI toolkit or native on multiple platforms?
Easiest cross platform widget toolkit?
Should I use a cross-platform GUI-toolkit or rely on the native ones?
Using a Mac for cross platform development?
and many others suggested in the Related sidebar of these questions.
Some answers suggest gtk (which is used by cross-platform gimp). Others suggest native approaches. Some suggest that a Mac is a nice platform for developing for Mac OS X, Windows, Unix and Linux.
I wholeheartedly recommend RealBasic too. I have been using RB for about 8 years now and find it to be a perfect tool for my Companies development needs, from small apps, to large multi-user systems.
It is perfect for beginners and those that are getting back into programming, and also for professional developers.
Highly recommended.
As Andy Dent and others here have indicated, for a newbie to create cross-platform applications it is hard to beat REALbasic (now Xojo).
Sure, there are plenty of other cross platform solutions such as QT (C++), Java, .NET (to some extent) and wxWidgets but they are not something a beginner would be able to use effectively.
I have many years of professional development experience in a wide variety of languages and technologies and I prefer to use REALbasic most of the time.
With that said, you might also consider Runtime Revolution or Adobe Air.
Whilst it might seem tempting to use a language thats platform independent and allow you to write the app once and use anywhere, you will undoubtably be sacrificing something on each, particularly in the UI and user experience.
If you can your best creating something using a native API that lets you take full advantage of the features of the OS to make your application shine.
I would definitely go for C++ and Qt, the code you write once will compile and run without problems on Windows, Mac and Linux. The new IDE that comes with Qt - Qt Creator is brilliant, works and looks the same on Windows, Mac and Linux, you don't need to anything else to start writing cross-platform applications.
I tried WxWidgets but didn't find good IDE, the best one was Code Blocks but GUI Designer is not perfect and has different problems on different systems and the IDE itself is still under heavy development.
Other options are Java and C# but those are not cross-platform languages, those are platforms themselves. Although you wouldn't need to compile code for each platform there will a lot of different issues on the way...
If your GUI's simple enough, why not just create a generic GUI layer, then program to that? Compile a version for each OS using native widgets. That's the best way to ensure native L&F on multiple platforms.
Both the Qt and REALbasic suggestions are good, although they tie you to that particular technology (which I can't imagine would be an issue in this particular case).
Personally, I'd go with Java, because it's worked for me before (I had an app that ran on my PDA, my phone and my desktop), but it doesn't use native widgets.
Adding a late comment here:
Take a look at Revolution. It's sort of like a modern Hyper-card on roids. And it's cross platform (Mac, Linux and Windows). This is a serious competitor to RealBasic and is coming on strong. Though I still use RB (and like it) I'm giving Revolution a serious look at.
I would also look into either Realbasic or Revolution. They both create cross platform native apps. Personally I think Realbasic would be a better choice as it is very similar, language wise, to VB. You can learn some valuable skills with RB and it can grow with your experience. I have been using VB and RB for more then 10 years combined and I think you will be happy.
If you need your code to be cross platform, you would have to go with something like QT.
Although, I would recommend using native API for each one (Cocoa for Mac OS X, .NET or the Win32 API for Windows). User experience will be much better. But of course, that will cost you more money in terms of developers hours.
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I've been wanting to become proficient in a new language for a while. There are a few languages I want to learn but it's pretty important for me to be able to create a (Application) GUI. I work in C# so I have become very accustom to the GUI designer.
I would love to get better with C++ or Java (both of which I have a small amount of experience with). Other languages could be interesting too. I just really need to be able to make a GUI reasonably easily.
So what (non .net) language has a really good method of designing GUIs?
An extension to this question might be what are the most common GUI APIs/designers?
I would recommend you to look at Delphi. It's object pascal with a nice IDE and a nice community!
Take a look at www.codegear.com
CodeGear have also a C++ IDE, so you can have the bundle and put your hand dirty at Delphi and C++!
Hope his helps
vIceBerg
I agree with pmlarocque in that you should use NetBeans if using Java. It really makes GUI design easy.
As an aside, I also recommend pencil and paper. That really has helped me throughout the years, start making sketches of what you want it to be then replicate it in the IDE.
For GUI in C++ you should look C++ Builder, you can get Turbo C++ Explorer for free
I use both Visual Studio and Delphi, and the Delphi GUI editor is significantly better. It is worth a try. They make a free version.
May I recommend Flex? Flex Builder has a really nice GUI designer.
As for Java, both NetBeans and Eclipse IDEs are good choices.
To design GUIs in Java, you can use SWT, AWT or Swing widget toolkits.
I heard that some people experienced problems with SWT projects running on NetBeans. However, NetBeans comes with a built-in GUI Builder for Swing , a very powerful widget toolkit.
Of course, there's also a plug-in for Eclipse that allows you to build Swing GUIs, so it basically comes down to which IDE you prefer...
NetBeans has a great Swing GUI Builder (formerly Project Matisse). This is for Java, I think it was started by Sun but is an open source project. Very similar to Eclipse, but I found an advantage with NetBeans due to this GUI builder.
Check it out at: http://www.netbeans.org/features/java/swing.html
The cross-platform Qt GUI framework (which is mainly for C++) comes with Qt Designer.
Interface Builder and Qt Designer are by far the best GUI design tools I've ever used.
WPF/Silverlight: Expression Blend
Not as big as it used to be, but Powerbuilder.
Visual Dataflex has a decent GUI editor. It's a nice solution for building "database-agnostic" database applications.
Use Microsoft Expression Blend to layout your GUI.
WPF...
Before, I was using Qt Designer. First time I started using Expression Blend, I fell in love with it. So much easier to use than Qt Designer.
If your app requires high-performance, back-end it with some native-code language like C++.
If not, just stick with C# or Python.
Remember it's not just the tool that you use, but how it works as a whole
Too many combinations of different languages/vendors sometimes just makes you want to pull your hair our!
Well, I have two options: Objective-C on the Mac using Cocoa GUI framework, or Java for everything (Mac, Linux, MS-Windows) using the Swing API.
If you want to program in Objective-C targeting Mac OS X operating system for Apple Macintosh, iPhone, or iPod Touch - then the Interface Builder that comes bundled with the Xcode IDE (part of the Developer bundle) is really good.
You will need a Mac, of course, to be able to use it. If you have a Linux or Windows PC already, then you probably have a monitor, USB mouse, and USB keyboard. So you could get an Mac Mini for $599 and hook those up to it.
The Developer bundle is free. Just go to developer.apple.com and sign up for free Developer tools once you get your Mac.
If you are going to be a professional developer, then you might want to go there before you get your Macintosh and see if registering as a Pro and buying a Macintosh and stuff under that deal would net you more bang for your buck.
This Interface Builder of Apple's is pretty famous. It is what gave the NeXT computer is high reputation for being the way to create applications really fast. Wall Street financial firms, government agencies, and research types - plus a fair number of 3rd party commercial software developers - used it to create GUI applications very rapidly.
The name of Apple's Cocoa framework, by the way, used to be Next Step. When Apple bough NeXT from Steve Jobs, they renamed Next Step Cocoa. However, the classes still begin with NS as a little artifact of their heritage.
What people like about Interface Builder is that it has a very good layout manager and it lets you "wire" UI objects to other objects, making the latter "targets". Wiring them together this way creates a "connection".
So far this sounds very unexciting, I know. However, it gets exciting when you start doing it. You can design your actual runnable GUI in the designer and actually run it before you have written any code. Writing code lets you incrementally flesh out the user interface that have behavior more than UI stimulus-response behavior.
Anyway, the idea is that you can bang out a prototype extremely quickly, get feedback from someone based on this concrete GUI - and then fill in the details with Objective-C programming.
The most famous thing that was ever created with Next Step (Cocoa) is the World Wide Web (WWW). You may have heard of it. Well, the first web browser in the world was created by Tim Berniers-Lee at CERN in 1989 using Next Step, which had just come out the year before (1988).
He said he liked Next Step because it let him create his web browser very quickly. Even more impressively, his web browser not only allowed users to view web pages - his browsre also let users edit the web pages they viewed.
If you want to program in Java, NetBeans has a very nice Swing GUI designer.
It comes built into NetBeans. The GUI designer very easy to use and seems to have a full set of capabilities. My ownly dislike is that it puts commented sections in the code that you cannot edit. JBuilder did not put those annoying comments/restrictions in but JBuilder has pretty much faded from the scene these days.
Another downside of NetBeans is that it creates a .form file with the same name as the GUI class you are editing. Java code refactoring tools, other than NetBeans, are not going to know about this file. So, if you manually move the package the class is part of (or rename the class) - or use Eclipse or some other program to do it - you are going to have problems. You will need to be sure to use NetBeans to move/rename your class.
Eclipse had one in the form of an experimental plugin that was an okay start for a GUI designer called VE (Visual Editor) a number of years back. However, VE does not appear to have been updated in a couple of years.
I really like the true portability of Java programs. Java programs with GUIs are no exception.
I recommend adopting Java as your new language and using NetBeans as your first IDE, since you favor GUI program designs with a WYSIWYG editor.
Later, I suggest you also learn Eclipse. That way you will benefit from its more powerful code editing/refactoring capabilities.
You do not have to make an either-or choice between the two IDEs. With some caveats, like I have given - you can use both.
Netbeans IDE for Java as a sweet GUI designer.
Java Netbeans is good, and since java is fairly close to c# in syntax, it might make an easy learning experience
wxGlade is a GUI designer that can generate Python, C++, Perl, or Lisp and uses the wxWidgets library. And it's free.
IntelliJ IDEA for Java
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/gui_builder.html
Here's a video:
http://www.javalobby.org/eps/intellij_ui_designer/
Vaadin
You can write business-oriented desktop-style web apps using only Java on the server side yet rendered automatically using Web standards client-side in the web browser.
The Vaadin Framework provides the magic of letting you define your desired fields, labels, buttons, and other widgets in a layout all using pure Java. By harnassing GWT technology, Vaadin transforms your Java code at runtime into the content for display in a user’s web browser. Your app is rendered using all the Web goodness of HTTP, HTTP/2, HTML, HTML5, CSS, DOM, JavaScript, WebSocket, Push, and so on… but does so transparently to the Java programmer. All that transformation is done under the covers. As a Vaadin programmer, all I deal with is Java coding.
I prefer using the well-documented API to programmatically layout the contents of my forms and widgets for the user-interface. You can do so free-of-cost using the open-source framework.
Alternatively, you can use their commercial product Vaadin Designer for a visual drag-and-drop layout editor tool.
Try the live Sampler and other demos such as Reindeer demo.
Since you mentioned you use C++, I'd recommend MatDeck(https://labdeck.com/comparison/). They offer a GUI Designer in their unique code. Their code is based on C++(It's called MatDeck C++ style code) and since it's specialized to their software it needs a lot less code to run. They offer much more and are a fully-fledged software. They also have a whole page that compares their code(https://labdeck.com/python/c-style-script/).