seesaw
A Clojure library and DSL for building user interfaces on top of Swing, making Swing development friendly and accessible.
What is seesaw?
Seesaw is a Clojure library that provides a functional, declarative interface for building graphical user interfaces on top of Java Swing. It solves the problem of Swing's verbose and object-oriented API by offering Clojure-friendly abstractions that make desktop application development more accessible to Clojure developers.
Clojure developers who need to build cross-platform desktop applications or want to create GUI tools without dealing directly with Swing's complexity.
Developers choose Seesaw because it provides a complete, well-documented DSL that makes Swing development feel native to Clojure, with features like widget binding, CSS-style selectors, and a unified event system that reduce boilerplate and improve productivity.
Overview
Seesaw turns the Horror of Swing into a friendly, well-documented, Clojure library
Use Cases
Best For
- Building cross-platform desktop applications in Clojure
- Creating internal tools and utilities with graphical interfaces
- Prototyping GUI applications quickly using Clojure REPL
- Educational projects teaching GUI programming in functional languages
- Migrating existing Swing applications to a more maintainable Clojure codebase
- Developing data visualization tools with custom drawing capabilities
Not Ideal For
- Projects requiring modern, native-looking user interfaces with sleek animations and transitions
- Teams developing applications for mobile platforms or web browsers
- Environments where high-performance, real-time graphics rendering is critical
- Organizations standardized on non-Clojure JVM languages like Kotlin or Scala for UI development
Pros & Cons
Pros
Provides simple functions for widget creation, such as `(listbox :model (range 100))`, eliminating Swing boilerplate and making GUI development accessible without deep Swing knowledge.
Uses Enlive-compatible syntax for easy widget targeting and manipulation, similar to web development, allowing for declarative UI updates.
Offers an extensible event handling system that integrates seamlessly with Clojure's functional programming style, simplifying interaction patterns.
Enables functional data binding with Clojure's reference types, allowing reactive updates between widgets and reducing manual state management.
Cons
Built on Java Swing, which has an outdated look and feel, limiting modern UI design possibilities and potentially alienating users accustomed to contemporary interfaces.
As a niche library for Clojure, it has fewer resources, tutorials, and third-party extensions compared to mainstream frameworks, which can slow down problem-solving and innovation.
Using bleeding-edge versions requires manual cloning and installation from source, as noted in the README, adding friction for developers wanting the newest features.
Frequently Asked Questions
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