I am looking for a simple to use IoC container for GUI applications written in Java/Scala.
It should support Convention over Configuration, lifecycle management, configuration in code (preferably without any XML needed at all), and checking dependencies at compile-time as much as possible. Something similar to Autofac would be perfect.
Sounds like you need something like Google Guice.
There used to quite a few IoC containers for Java (e.g. PicoContainer), but they’ve all been in the shadow of Spring for years now. Spring is likely a bit over the top for your needs, though.
Guice has restarted some healthy competition.