The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs [Paperback]

Kathy Walrath (Author), Mary Campione (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201433214 | ISBN-13: 978-0201433210 | Publication Date: June 17, 1999

Developed and co-written by the lead writer on the Swing team, this book covers everything you need to know to write GUIs that use Swing components. The JFC Swing Tutorial uses a task-oriented, example-driven approach to introduce you to fundamental concepts and applications. Designed to be read either cover-to-cover or as a quick reference, this book explains how to use each Swing component, perform layout, do basic drawing, and convert 1.1 AWT programs to Swing. This book covers Swing 1.1.1. An appendix lists the complete source code for dozens of example applications and applets. The CD-ROM includes Swing 1.1.1, JDK 1.1, the Java 2 Platform, and the hypertext version of all three Java Tutorial books.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With the arrival of Sun's Swing/JFC classes, Java developers can create user interfaces that look great and perform just as well as "native" interfaces. The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs provides a hard copy of Sun's popular online tutorial for Swing/JFC development. Its numerous code examples and clear presentation style make this title a fine choice for mastering the ins and outs of today's Swing.

Owing to its Web heritage, digestibility is perhaps this book's most notable feature. Short sections on virtually every topic in Swing programming help bring the reader up to speed with this UI library. Early sections look at getting started and the organization of classes in both applets and applications, as well as useful high-level classes like frames and scroll panes. When it comes to such basic Swing components as text, label, and image controls, Swing beginners will appreciate the concise description of each component along with necessary APIs. More advanced material, such as optimizing repainting of Swing controls and techniques for more efficient tables, will be useful to any Swing developer.

Most computer books use either code excerpts or full-length programs. For the main text of The JFC Swing Tutorial, short code examples are the norm, but with over 300 pages of complete programs in an appendix, this book will also please those who appreciate more complete examples.

Efficient and thorough, this book succeeds in making JFC/Swing enjoyable while imparting a good deal of necessary information. Armed with this book, any intermediate to advanced Java programmer can make sense of today's Swing with a minimum of effort. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: JFC basics, compiling and running JFC programs, JFC applets and applications, pluggable look-and-feel options, layout managers, event listeners and event handling, graphics, images, animation and painting, threads, JComponent, frames and top-level containers, basic and advanced JFC components, tables, trees, models and custom editors, accessibility APIs, and converting code from AWT to JFC.

From the Inside Flap

This volume of The Java(TM) Tutorial tells you how to write GUIs that use the Java(TM) Foundation Classes (JFC) "Swing" components. You can use the information in this book both with the Java 2 platform (Standard Edition, v 1.2 and compatible versions) and with JDK(TM) 1.1 (with additional JFC 1.1 libraries).

The online form of The Java(TM) Tutorial has covered the Swing components since their first public early access release--Swing 0.2, which came out in July, 1997. Through the many early access releases, the Tutorial kept pace with API changes and additions. Readers and reviewers kept us on our toes, helping us improve each page tremendously. However, readers often requested a printed version of the online material. This book is that version. About This Book's Structure

The hyperlinked origins of this book may be evident as you read it. For instance, underlined phrases throughout this book mimic online links. A link to material within this book is followed by the appropriate page number. A link to material outside this book, such as to the JDK API documentation, is accompanied by a footnote that contains a URL. Other evidence of this book's online origin can be found on the first page of each lesson and major section, which provides the URL where the lesson or section can be found in the online Tutorial.

You might be wondering why we use the terms "trails" and "lessons." We know that people don't learn linearly. People learn by posing a problem, solving it, uncovering other problems, solving them, and learning information as the need arises. Our original vision for the online Tutorial was to encourage and enable this type of thinking and learning. We envisioned a mountain of ski trails, where at any junction, a reader could choose the most interesting or appropriate path at that time. But we also needed some sort of structure and organization, so we created a two-tiered hierarchy: trails at the top level and lessons within them. This book consists of the largest Tutorial trail, Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing. Acknowledgments

We would like to thank every member of the Swing project. They're a great team of people who do excellent work and are fun to be around. For help with general technical issues, we depended on two people. Hans Muller, the Swing project lead, provided not only reviews of individual sections, but also gave sound advice and help with overall issues. Amy Fowler reviewed individual sections and, as someone with broad knowledge of both the AWT and Swing, helped us to correctly describe such architectural features as graphics support.

Reviewers of individual how-to sections include Philip Milne, who gave masterful reviews of the table and list portions and supplied the sorter example. Georges Saab reviewed the menu- and action-related discussions. Scott Violet provided invaluable help with the text and tree pages. Jeff Dinkins reviewed several sections and also provided quality-of-life enhancements such as tile samples and miniature phone lists.

Earl Johnson and Peter Korn, from the accessibility team, gently prodded us into covering accessibility well. Their demos, coaching, and careful review of the accessibility section helped us improve it greatly.

It's always a pleasure working with Pat Chan, whose early review of this book helped us determine its scope and approach.

Other reviewers and Swing team members that we'd like to thank include Mike Albers, Tim Prinzing, Tom Santos, Steve Wilson, Rich Schiavi, Tom Ball, Jim Graham, and Hania Gajewska. Rick Levenson, the original manager of the Swing project, was very supportive. We look forward to working with the new manager, Howard Rosen.

Alison Huml performed production duties on this book, juggling coursework, paid work, RSI, and a household move. Without her, this book wouldn't exist. She also drew most of the pictures in this book, with the exception of the cartoony ones, which were drawn by Kathy's sweetheart Nathan.

Jennifer Ball helped us at crucial points, doing such tasks as checking API tables and code snippets, and converting graphics examples.

Lisa Friendly, our manager and series editor, gave us the freedom and support necessary to do our work--and enjoy it. Stans Kleijnen and Jon Kannegaard, respectively the director of product engineering and the vice president of the Java platform, also contributed to an atmosphere that let everyone do their best.

We'd also like to thank the team at Addison-Wesley: Mike Hendrickson, Sarah Weaver, Evelyn Pyle, Jacquelyn Young, Marina Lang, and Julie DeBaggis. They've been a pleasure to work with.

Finally, thank you to our readers.

0201433214P04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 976 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (June 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201433214
• ISBN-13: 978-0201433210
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,038,701 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the fastest track to writing GUI using Swing..., August 13, 2000

By 

Mayer Goldberg (Beer Sheva, Negev Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs (Paperback)

If you know Java, that is, Java without the GUI, and you want to write applets or programs that use GUI components (buttons, menues, text boxes, etc), pick up this book and you'll be writing your own GUI applications in under an hour. Don't bother with the "Differential Equations For Dummies" or with the Web Programming in 21 Days type of books -- Many of them use the older GUI and others, even though they do use Swing, use the older event handling model. If you want to program GUI, then do it right: The book is systematic and accurate and has plenty of examples of code. Use this book for textbook and/or reference.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A beter Swing "tutor" is hard to find, February 15, 2000

By 

Brian Bowman - See all my reviews

This review is from: The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs (Paperback)

It is clear to me that tutorial (i.e. an aide to "tutor") is what defines this book's purpose. While I agree with the other reviewer's comments about what this book lacks, I would like to complement the authors on what I believe is the greatest benefit of "The JFC Swing Tutorial". This is it seems that no matter problem I'm having with a particular aspect of Swing, this book gives me a "place to start" (isn't this what a tutor is for?). Yes, there are some gaps in its explanation of the Abstract/Default Table and TableColumn Model classes and some of the Event Handling material is too terse, etc.

However, time and time again, I've been in able to jump into this book "mid-trail" and wind up "on course" for solving a Swing-related problem. Some times the journey leads me to the constituent WEB Pages. Other times it's a trip into a JAVA IDE Debugger and/or a look at the javax.swing class soruce files. In any case this book has been the tutor I needed to learn Swing fundamentals and has led me to discover some advanced Swing features as well.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 2nd edition is a great book..., May 8, 2004

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Target Audience
Java developers who want to learn to develop graphical applications using the Swing classes

Contents
This book is part of the Sun tutorial series, and concentrates on the Swing classes of the language.

The book is divided into the following chapters: Before You Start; Learning Swing By Example; Using Swing Components; Laying Out Components within a Container; Writing Event Listeners; Performing Custom Painting; Component Reference; Layout Manager Reference; Other Swing Features Reference; Event Listeners References; Troubleshooting Reference; Index

Review
Most of the coding I do in Java involves background agents that don't involve any sort of a user interface. But that's not to say that I haven't wanted to put a front end on some of my routines and allow for some user interaction. In order to do that, I need to learn more about how to use the Java GUI classes. This book, The JFC Swing Tutorial, is definitely what I need.

The book is a nice blend of tutorial and reference guide. The first six chapters are definitely tutorial in nature, with a number of examples and things you are asked to try and work through. At the end of each of those chapters, you'll find a series of questions and exercises that will allow you to assess your understanding of the material. Starting in chapter seven, the book moves more towards a reference manual, but not in the typical "here's the documentation" format. Each reference section has a series of "How To..." topics that give you more detailed information and examples about that feature. For instance, the formatted text field section has a demo of that feature, instructions on how to work with features in the JFormattedTextField class, and an API chart of the related classes and specific methods in JFormattedTextField. The blend of information and examples helps you to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical use.

The only "complaint" that one might have about this book is that much of the information can be found online at the Sun Java site. To that I say, "so what?" When I'm looking up a quick answer to something and I don't have my library available to me, online references are great. But when I'm learning a new skill, give me a book that I can carry around, mark up, and have open in front of me at the keyboard. It's how I work best.

Conclusion
This is a very complete and well-written volume on how to use the Swing GUI classes. If you need to learn how to move your Java programming in a graphical direction, you'll like this book.