Java Foundation Classes in A Nutshell (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The JFC/Swing classes offer a powerful way to build user interfaces in Java, and this richness comes with a lot more complexity. Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell provides the documentation needed for understanding the most important features of Swing and serves as a handy reference to every package, class, and method.

The book is especially good at introducing the essential elements of Swing compared to the older AWT standard. Early chapters compare the fundamentals of AWT and Swing, including the architecture of each, plus the new possibilities for user interfaces offered by today's Swing. Standout sections on Java2D graphics (which is a lot more complicated than AWT graphics), printing, and Swing's advanced UI capabilities round out the tour here. Short examples and clear explanations, somewhat dryly written, provide a starting point for learning Swing.

The heart of this book is its 500 pages of reference material for every Java Swing (and AWT) package, class, and method. Some readers may quibble with the ordering here. (For instance, the model classes for advanced UI components like JTables are separated from the components themselves). But this reference has a good sense of visual clarity (with alternate lines of text highlighted with gray so that you can find what you need quickly). There are also some nice graphics, showing the relationship of Swing classes to one another.

In all, Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell provides a very worthwhile reference to today's Swing classes. This text is as good as any available in getting to essential information on the powers of Swing for practical Java development. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: JFC/Swing 1.1 and AWT basics, components, layout managers, events, Swing advanced user interface features, serialization, AWT and Java2D graphics, shapes, buffered images, affine transforms, printing, data transfer (cut-and-paste and drag-and-drop, applet basics, JDK 1.1 and Java 2 API package and class reference), UI classes, pluggable-look-and-feel, image APIs, tables and trees, text, and HTML viewer classes.

Product Description

The Java Foundation Classes (JFC) encompass all of the GUI- and graphics-related classes in the Java 2 platform. Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell provides an in-depth overview of the important pieces of the JFC, such as the Swing GUI components and Java 2D, so you can start using these exciting new technologies right away. The book also includes quick-reference material for all of the classes and interfaces in the javax.swing and java.awt packages and their numerous subpackages. This reference material covers all of the new JFC classes in the Java 2 platform, as well as the existing Java 1.1 AWT classes. This book is an essential companion to Java in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition, which covers the key nongraphical APIs in Java 1.2.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 744 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (December 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565924886
• ISBN-13: 978-1565924888
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #775,492 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only if you need a printed Java reference, November 1, 1999

By A Customer

A brief but good reference of the JFCs. Again none of language features are covered in dept so don't expect this book to be a tutorial or an introduction to Java. Buy it together with another title that has more hands on examples.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reference tool..., January 11, 2004

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This title is meant to be the second volume of a three volume set that covers the entire language. Volume one covers the basic core Java APIs, while volume three covers the enterprise classes.

Like all "In A Nutshell" books, this isn't probably where you want to start if you are trying to learn the language. Part 1 is set up such that topics are introduced and discussed with code examples, but it is not a "hand-holding" type of explanation. It assumes you are at least familiar with the information at a high-level, and understand the basic core Java fundamentals. If you are at that point, you should be able to learn a lot from the first section.

Part 2 is where an experienced Java GUI programmer will live and breath. There is detailed documentation on each of the classes that are covered, as well as a diagram that shows the class hierarchy within the class, and where the class fits into the overall Java class hierarchy. Once again, it's strictly documentation with no explanation. Don't expect the author to explain how each method in the class works. It's up to you to figure out how the method best integrates into your project.

I can pose the same question I did when I reviewed Java In A Nutshell... Why get this book if I have the online API documentation from Sun? I see them as complimentary. You can probably find much of the reference material in either source. Some will prefer the online hyperlink navigation, while others will appreciate having all the information on a subject in four or five pages that can be thumbed through. I know when I'm stuck on a problem I want both sources!

For Notes/Domino 5 developers, I would say that there is little in this book that would be of value to you as you code a typical Notes/Domino application. While Notes/Domino does support applets within the application, you would most likely code those outside of the Notes/Domino framework. If you are tasked with developing a Java application that uses Notes/Domino APIs to capture some of the inherent power of the platform, then this book would be useful as you develop the GUI interface that you'll need for your project.

Conclusion
If you're a Java developer working with client-side applications, get this book. If you're a Notes/Domino developer looking to use Java in your applications, you should probably focus on the Java In A Nutshell book. This is a very well written book, but the usefulness of the information depends on what type of Java programming you are doing.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complete Reference but no Tutorial, December 28, 2000

By	Eric Dubuis (Tinton Falls, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book "Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell" contains an introduction to the Java Foundation Classes and a complete reference to them.

The major part of the text (~550 pages) is the reference to the Foundation Classes and lists all of the JFC classes with their class hierarchy structure information, all methods and a brief description of the class. This reference part has the same quality as the references known from the other Java in a Nutshell publications (Java in a Nutshell, Java Enterprise in a Nutshell). It is comprehensive, gives a good overview of each package and lists the class methods in a very readable way. The introduction to packages and classes are brief but cover the essentials very well.

The first ~150 pages of this book give an overview of the Swing architecture and an introduction to the key APIs in the JFC. It covers graphics, printing, data transfer and applets. This part of the book is more problematic than the actual reference part. The selection of topics is limited and not very intuitive (why a hole section on Applets?). Although this introduction is written very well, the it is too short to serve as a tutorial and yet too literary and incomplete to be part of reference manual.

Anyhow, this is a good and complete reference manual that comes handy whenever you don't have access to the online Java API documentation.