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CookSwt is a toolkit that dynamically generates SWT layouts using XML descriptions.  It brings the following benefits to any SWT applications:

• Separation of UI from business logic.  Thus make it easier to maintain and update them independently.
• Simpler and faster GUI design with more straightforward hierarchical view of GUI components and layouts.

While the above are the characteristics of most XULs (XML UI Languages), CookSwt stands out from the crowd with the following capabilities:

• All SWT components and layouts are supported.
• Easily extensible tag library.
• Scripting supports can be added with BeanShell, Jython, JavaScript or BSF (Bean Scripting Framework) tag extensions.  Scripts are useful fine tuning GUI looks without affecting business logic.

Here is an example of an XML that describes the layout of four buttons inside of a group composite.

<group style="SHADOW_ETCHED_IN" text="HORIZONTAL">
   	<filllayout type="HORIZONTAL" spacing="5" marginheight="5" marginwidth="5">
   		<button text="1"/>
   		<button text="2"/>
   		<button text="3"/>
   		<button text="4"/>
   	</filllayout>
</group>

See this Java Web Start demo to witness CookSwt in action.

CookSwt is a tag library for CookXml , a general purpose XML parser.  For more information, visit http://cookxml.sourceforge.net/cookswt/ .

There are other XML -> SWT toolkits, such as XSWT and JellySWT.  Be sure to take a look at them as well.