Java Swing, Second Edition (Paperback)

~ James Elliott (Author), (Editor), Marc Loy (Author), David Wood (Author), Brian Cole (Author)
Key Phrases: public void install, focus cycle root, initial selection state, Property Data, Border Layout, Class Abstract Class (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Java Swing, long regarded as the authoritative book on using the Swing classes, is available in a new edition that builds on a solid foundation in exploring the Java 2 Swing additions and modifications. This is a big, tremendously detailed, exhaustively researched, and ultimately authoritative reference that pushes the limits of what a book can do toward eliminating the necessity of writing experimental programs to see how Swing classes work in practice. You'll find in these pages bits of software that show how most of Swing works: all of the major features get lavish attention, while most of the minor classes are demonstrated adequately, as well.

You could probably find demonstrations free of charge on the Internet, however. The true value of this work is in the comments its five authors have attached to their copious examples. They can be quite specific: at least one such segment warns that default Swing behavior violates Mac OS X user interface guidelines and explains how to work around the problem. Another section explains how the methods of the UndoableEdit class can be used in various ways, to implement different user interface behavior options. Some readers will head straight to the O'Reilly Web site, where they can grab the code and examine it in an editor rather than in print--code listings take up a lot of space here--but everyone will appreciate the concise hierarchy, method, and property documentation, as well as the wisdom contained in the prose. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Swing classes for creating graphical user interfaces in the Java programming language. It covers all the windowing stuff--dialogs, buttons, containers, layouts, lists, and that kind of thing--as well as tables, trees, text-manipulation classes, formatted text, drag and drop, and accessibility support.

Product Description

Swing is a fully-featured user interface development kit for Java applications. Building on the foundations of the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT), Swing enables cross-platform applications to use any of several pluggable look-and-feels. Swing developers can take advantage of its rich, flexible features and modular components, building elegant user interfaces with very little code. This second edition of Java Swing thoroughly covers all the features available in Java 2 SDK 1.3 and 1.4. More than simply a reference, this new edition takes a practical approach. It is a book by developers for developers, with hundreds of useful examples, from beginning level to advanced, covering every component available in Swing. Whether you're a seasoned Java developer or just trying to find out what Java can do, you'll find Java Swing, 2nd edition an indispensable guide.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1280 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 2nd edition (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596004087
• ISBN-13: 978-0596004088
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #143,127 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most informative reference available, February 20, 1999

By	Matthew Robinson ([e-mail]) (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Swing (Paperback)

Pavel Vorobiev and I are currently finishing up an 'advanced' Swing book consisting mainly of examples ("Swing", Manning publications). We have referenced the Swing source code nonstop. Apart from this, we feel that Java Swing is the best Swing reference money can buy. This book is not an API docs dump. It is a high quality reference book for GUI developers who are prepared to do their job professionaly, not blindly. If you are looking for a hand-holding tutorial this book is not for you (for this I would suggest Up to Speed With Swing).

Java Swing is very well organized and full of original explanation. I encourage potential readers to disregard other comments claiming that this book is API repetitive or doesn't explain enough. No book can cover every possible situation that can arise in the creation of a GUI, and no book will fully explain all of the inner workings of each Swing component and UI delegate. Swing is a very complex and extensive library with some very interesting and powerful mechanisms working behind the scenes. Without a doubt, Java Swing is the most informative and rich reference available. I recommend it highly.

Matthew Robinson
"Swing", Manning publications
Swing "Tips and Tricks", The Swing Connection

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good resource, April 26, 2003

By	Jason Menard - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Java Swing" is an in-depth look at the features and components of Java's popular Swing API. The much-anticipated second edition of O'Reilly's classic brings the book up-to-date with the changes made in SDKs 1.3 and 1.4. Each Swing component is covered in detail, providing information on constructors, methods, and properties. There is of course a plethora of example code clearly demonstrating how to use the various components and features.

While "Java Swing" is quite a hefty book, it does not cover the Java event model introduced in JDK 1.1, the AWT layout managers, or relevant AWT components such as Component that are subclassed by Swing components. Instead references are given to pdf files containing chapters of O'Reilly's out-of-print AWT book. While this may have been an acceptable omission for the first edition in 1998, where it might be assumed that developers had some experience with AWT, I do not feel this is a valid assumption today.

If you can look past the book's omissions, or if you have a companion reference covering those features, "Java Swing" has much to offer and will serve as a treasured reference. If you are unfamiliar with AWT and looking to learn how to develop user interfaces in Java, you may wish to look elsewhere first.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good reference, goes well beyond javadocs, March 17, 1999

By	Greg Munger (chesterton, in USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Java Swing (Paperback)

This book has been well reviewed by others, but for once I actually read a programming book cover to cover (on vacation), so I wanted to comment.

This is the first book on Swing that I have read, though perhaps the 10th on Java, and I have been using Swing since the first beta was available.

I think the authors should be commended for really examining each class that is presented, and the sample programs to exercise the "little" classes really show good preparation. I think the size of the sample code is perfect to explain a concept without getting bogged down in the details of a toy application.

The book is organized in a "bottom up" fashion, so the TableColumn class is explained before JTable (for example). This provides consistant explanations, but it does mean deferring the motivation for learning something until the end.

The biggest problem is with the Text/Editor classes. Here there are 200 pages of preliminary information before you get to JEditorPane, and then the authors stop and say the class is too buggy to explain. I can't blame the authors for JDK problems, but I think a "top down" explanation might work better with this very complex set of classes. On the other hand, if we ever do get a version of JEditorPane that can display HTML without throwing exceptions, these chapters will provide good background material.

I learned things from almost every chapter, it is a very good reference.