Java Swing

By N4m3 Publishing

The Swing classes eliminate Java's biggest weakness: its relatively primitive user interface toolkit. Swing provides many new components and containers that allow you to build sophisticated user interfaces, far beyond what was possible with AWT. The old components have been greatly improved, and there are many new components, like trees, tables, and even text editors. It also adds several completely new features to Java's user interface capabilities: drag-and-drop, undo, and the ability to develop your own "look and feel," or the ability to choose between several standard looks. The Swing components are all "lightweight," and therefore provide more uniform behavior across platforms, making it easier to test your software.All these new features mean that there's a lot to learn. Swing is undoubtedly way ahead of AWT -- or, for that matter, any widely available user interface toolkit -- but it's also a lot more complicated. It's still easy to do simple things. But once you've seen what's possible, you won't want to do the simple things. Java Swing gives you in-depth coverage of everything you need to know to take full advantage of Swing, providing detailed descriptions of every class and interface in the key Swing packages. It shows you how to use all of the new components, allowing you to build state-of-the-art user interfaces. It also discusses how the components implement the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture, so you can understand how the components are designed and subclass them intelligently. Finally, it shows how to create your own "look and feel." Throughout, Java Swing focuses on giving you the context you need to understand what you're doing. It's more than documentation; Java Swing helps you develop code quickly and effectively.Whether you're a serious Java developer, or just trying to find out what Java can do, you'll find Java Swing an indispensable guide. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156592455X
• ISBN13: 9781565924550
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 1255 Pages
• Weight: 3.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Encyclopedic tome on Swing is a great reference

This extremely hefty book on Swing has just about everything in it. However, it is intended to be a reference on Swing, not a tutorial. The problem with the Java Swing API is that it is so large and unwieldy itself that it is difficult to write a complete and useful reference that does not reflect that fact. If you need a good tutorial on Java Swing, you might want to look at the Core Java books by Cornell and read the chapters...

Great Java Swing Resource

The Java Swing 2nd Edition O'Reilly book is a very good resource for learning and using Java Swing. The book covers the important and commonly used aspects of Swing without getting bogged down into the minute details you would find in the technical API specifications. The examples from the book are available on O'Reilly's website and can be downloaded from their site in one file or accessed individually. There are also...

Excellent Reference

This is must have reference for anyone that wants to learn Java Swing. It covers almost every class in Swing, with detailed explanations of what its most important methods do, it members and constants and examples on how to use them. These examples demonstrate just how powerful and rich applications developed with Swing can be. While the author assumes that the reader has some Java and Object Oriented knowledge, this...

Great for starting w/ Swing when already experienced w/java

When I started converting AWT stuff to Swing stuff I just used sun's api docs and tutorial. But when I started getting into more difficult areas like table layout, multiple document interfaces, etc., I decided to buy a book. I bought this one and have been very happy with it. I skimmed through most of it a while back and now I use it as a reference, looking up whatever topic I am having trouble with and going through the...

The most informative reference available

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...