The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFACE (Paperback)

~ Robert Harris (Author), (Author)
Key Phrases: selection listener, root item, typed event, Methods Method Description, Sub Sub Item, The Custom Controls (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

<i>The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace</i> is indeed definitive and proved to be a nearly perfect choice for starting my journey inside Eclipse's much hyped GUI toolkit(s).</a></p> </blockquote> <p id="quoteAuthor">&#8212; Lasse Koskela, JavaRanch Bartender</p></div> <p>Need to build stand-alone Java applications? <em>The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace</em> will help you build them from the ground up. The book first runs down the Java GUI toolkit history. Then the book explains why SWT is superior and provides extensive examples of building applications with SWT. </p>

<p>You'll come to understand the entire class hierarchy of SWT, and you'll learn to use all components in the toolkit with Java code. Furthermore, the book describes JFace, an additional abstraction layer built on SWT. Demonstrations of building JFace applications are also included and reinforced with thorough explanations and example code. These applications can be used as GUI plug-ins for Eclipse, and they're compatible with the new Eclipse 3.0 application development framework.</p>

About the Author

Robert Harris is a software engineer focused on distributed object computing. Since earning his master of science degree from the University of Florida, he has been designing and implementing flexible, resilient solutions in the telecommunications, transportation, and medical industries. His personal interests include speaking French with his 7-year-old daughter Mallory, catching bugs with his 6-year-old son Charlie, and infuriating his wife Alison (age withheld).

Rob Warner graduated from Brigham Young University in December 1993 with a degree in English, and then immediately took a job in the technology industry. He has developed software in various languages for the transportation, banking, and medical industries during his career. Now president and CEO of Interspatial, Inc., he designs and develops Java-based solutions using both Eclipse and its derivative, WebSphere Studio Application Developer. He has used SWT and JFace on several projects, including an executive information system for a religious organization, a password-retrieval Eclipse plug-in, and various other applications and utilities. Rob lives in Jacksonville, Florida, with his wife, Sherry, and their five children: Tyson, Jacob, Mallory, Camie, and Leila.

Product Details

• Paperback: 684 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (June 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590593251
• ISBN-13: 978-1590593257
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #157,523 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great choice for starting your SWT learning path, August 6, 2004

By	Lasse Koskela (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I won't be needing another SWT book in a while... "The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace" is indeed definitive and proved to be a nearly perfect choice for starting my journey inside Eclipse's much hyped GUI toolkit(s).

The book starts from scratch, explaining the history and motivation for a different approach to a GUI toolkit (SWT's native peer widgets vs. the emulated widgets of Swing, etc.), proceeding to your typical Hello World app with a single window and a single label, and ends up covering most everything I can think of needing to build even a relatively complex GUI using SWT and JFace. The book is a huge tome, partly because it includes listings of all the various methods provided by the classes introduced along the way. On one hand, it's a good thing because the book is pretty much all you need (i.e. a decent replacement for Google;), and on the other hand, the book would be a lot more pleasant to read if you'd drop a few hundred pages...

One thing I specifically liked about the book is that the authors have done a good job employing screenshots where needed -- especially in the chapter about layouts.

I'll definitely recommend this book for anyone looking to learn SWT. I'm not really a GUI developer (only having done Swing for personal stuff) and the book works for me as an introduction, tutorial, and a reference.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on SWT yet, October 21, 2004

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is the second book that I have read on SWT. The other was Addison Wesley's book "SWT: The Standard Widget Toolkit", which is in the Eclipse series. That was a short book that flew through the topic. This is a much more in-depth work.

Both books share the same introductory style. They walk through the toolkit from front-to-back and demonstrate each concept and widget by showing code and screen shots. Each book suffers from the same long term problem in that it cannot be used as reference material since neither book provides an appendix that would serve that purpose.

That being said, I still prefer this book because it is much more in-depth and presents a shallower longer learning curve than the Addison-Wesley book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent SWT Book, August 23, 2004

By	D. Meister (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent book for both the beginner and the professional developer. If you need to write an application and are planning to use SWT but are not a guru, you will want to get this book. It does a great job of explaining SWT, what it is, why it is that way, and how to use it.

Each section of the book provides a topic for discussion, a code example and a complete description of all the classes and methods used. I particularly appreciated the code examples and the tips for real world implementation. The code is clean, complete, and easy to understand.

I found this book easy to read. The author interspersed just the right amount of theory, history, and commentary to break up the details and keep me interested. It is obvious that he has a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. The surprising part is how adept he is at communicating this knowledge to the reader.