Up to Speed with Swing: User Interfaces with Java Foundation Classes [Paperback]

Steven Gutz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1998

A tutorial for beginner and intermediate Java developers, including those currently using AWT, this book describes key Swing components, covers all areas on which there have been questions in Internet newsgroups, and provides tips on good user interface design practices, and focused examples.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stephen Gutz's competent book about one of Java's graphical user interface (GUI)-building technologies covers everything you'd want in a Swing book--layouts, events, all the components, and more. Gutz focuses on the interface components, detailing buttons, text elements, and tables. Throughout, his code is clear and easy to follow, and a chapter about look-and-feel programming is excellent.

The Web resources that support this book are what distinguish it from the crowd of Swing books. Gutz monitors and participates in a question-and-answer forum on the Manning site. Java programmers post questions in this forum, and other programmers--including Gutz, who seems quite active--reply with solutions and advice. The site appears to be quite heavily used, yet with a good signal-to-noise ratio. The Q&A forum is only one piece of the site--it also features the illustrative code from the book, an errata page, and an Adobe Acrobat copy of the text. The publisher restricts access to the Web site by prompting you for a particular word from the book before assigning you a username and password.

Thanks to the Web site and Gutz's participation there, it's almost as though you get free consulting time when you buy this book. --David Wall

Review

". . . authored by a master programmer, Up to Speed with Swing will save you time mastering Swing. This tutorial style title covers the basics of Swing and gives you an understanding of the big picture as well as the experience of working through detailed examples.

In addition, the author monitors and participates in a Swing message board Manning Publications site. The site also includes code from the book and an errata page. Wonderful!" -- CompBookReview.com, October 99

"This book presents a thorough introduction and reference to Swing (why to use it, how to use it, how to optimize it, etc.). The explanations are clear and concise and there are plenty of sample programs (available from a web site). Recommended for the professional developer and as a student text in an HCI module." -- Association of C & C++ Users Book Reviews --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 498 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884777643
• ISBN-13: 978-1884777646
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,727,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed that book omits important areas, September 2, 2000

By 

Jerry Gauthier (Sandwich, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Up to Speed with Swing (Paperback)

I read all the reviews and thought this book would provide a good reference on Swing. While it does introduce developers to Swing, I've subsequently found that it glosses over or fails to cover topics that are important once you start developing with Swing.

For example, the book barely touches on layout managers. But an understanding of layout managers is essential to development of a good UI via Swing. The book also has no/minimal coverage of areas such as text selection and carets. I suspect that there are other areas not mentioned but I haven't proceeded far enough with Swing to recognize what else is missing.

With hindsight, I wish that I'd bought the Java Swing book published by O'Reilly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great expectations, great disappointment..., March 18, 2000

By 

Frank Kruchio (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Up to Speed with Swing (Paperback)

I have done quiet a bit of research on the net before I ordered this book, just so I get the best one. It looked just the book for me to start learning Swing. (I know Java already). When I looked through the book I was shocked to see that it was little more than a doorstop. Gutz is one of those few gifted individuals who really knows what he's talking about. BUT doesn't know how to explain it clearly. Apart from his coding style and the last two chapters this book rushes through every aspect of swing with very little to say about all parts of Swing. If you are looking for a book that will REALLY help you learn Swing, I recommend you take your hard earned cash elsewhere. I am returning it. And make a decision probably between the Sun's tutorial and Matthew Robinson's Swing book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good as far as it goes, January 17, 2003

By 

Warren J. Dew (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Up to Speed with Swing: User Interfaces with Java Foundation Classes (Paperback)

My copy has a little different cover, says "2nd edition", and is copyright 2000, but I couldn't find an exact match on Amazon.

The book is a good introduction to Swing, getting this Java programmer started fairly quickly. One thing that's appreciated for this server side Java programmer with no previous familiarity with AWT is the brief section reviewing AWT - which you unfortunately also have to know to use Swing, it seems.

That said, you run into the limits of the book rather quickly. There's a lot of detail on how to use each component, but very little on how to use it well. Coverage of layouts and events, both critical to building a good UI, is sketchy.

Also, there's no real reference section. Even just a brief listing of all the relevant classes and their methods would be really nice - say, similar to the reference section of David Flanagan's classic "Java in a Nutshell".

Finally, the author seems to be somewhat Windows centric, which is a little unfortunate since the main reason to use Swing is to produce a cross platform product.