Java Swing

by Marc Loy, Robert Eckstein, Dave Wood, James Elliott, Brian Cole

Overview

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. All these features mean that there's a lot to learn. Even setting aside its platform flexibility, Swing compares favorably with any widely available user interface toolkit—it has great depth. Swing makes it easy to do simple things but is powerful enough to create complex, intricate interfaces. Java Swing, 2nd edition includes :

• A new chapter on Drag and Drop
• Accessibility features for creating a user interface meeting the needs of all users
• Coverage of the improved key binding infrastructure introduced in SDK 1.3
• A new chapter on JFormattedTextField and input validation
• Mac OS X coverage and examples
• Coverage of the improved focus system introduced in SDK 1.4
• Pluggable Look-and-Feel coverage
• Coverage of the new layout manager, SpringLayout, from SDK 1.4
• Properties tables that summarize important features of each component
• Coverage of the 1.4 Spinner component
• Details about using HTML in components
• A new appendix listing bound actions for each component
• A supporting web site with utilities, examples, and supplemental materials

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596004088
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/20/2002
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	1278
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.19(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Marc Loy is a senior programmer at Galileo Systems, LLC, but his day job seems to be teaching Java and Perl to various companies — including Sun Microsystems. He has played with Java since the alpha days and can't find his way back to C. He is developing an interactive learning application at Galileo written entirely in Java. He received his master's degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and still lives in Madison with his partner, Ron Becker. He does find time to relax by playing the piano and/or throwing darts, depending on how successful the day of teaching or programming was.

Robert Eckstein, an editor at O'Reilly, works mostly on Java books (notably Java Swing) and is also responsible for the XML Pocket Reference and Webmaster in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition. In his spare time he has been known to provide online coverage for popular conferences. He also writes articles for JavaWorld magazine. Robert holds bachelor's degrees in computer science and communications from Trinity University. In the past, he has worked for the USAA insurance company and more recently spent four years with Motorola's cellular software division. He is the co-author of Using Samba.

David Wood is Technical Director of Plugged In Software in Brisbane, Australia, where he works with a wonderful team producing Java custom software. In his eclectic career he has been a ship's navigator, deep sea salvage engineer, and aerospace project manager for the U.S. Navy, and consulted to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Netscape. David enjoys hiking and sailing with his very patient wife and teaching his son Perl before he goes to kindergarten. David holds degrees in mechanical, electrical, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and the Virginia Military Institute.

a senior software engineer at Berbee, with over ten years professional experience as a systems developer. He started designing with objects well before work environments made it convenient, and has a passion for building high-quality Java tools and frameworks to simplify the tasks of other developers.

has been working with Java since its early days and teaches the language at venues ranging from Sun Microsystems to public high school. He has a BA from Oberlin College and an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introducing Swing
• Chapter 2: Jump-Starting a Swing Application
• Chapter 3: Swing Component Basics
• Chapter 4: Labels and Icons
• Chapter 5: Buttons
• Chapter 6: Bounded-Range Components
• Chapter 7: Lists, Combo Boxes, and Spinners
• Chapter 8: Swing Containers
• Chapter 9: Internal Frames
• Chapter 10: Swing Dialogs
• Chapter 11: Specialty Panes and Layout Managers
• Chapter 12: Chooser Dialogs
• Chapter 13: Borders
• Chapter 14: Menus and Toolbars
• Chapter 15: Tables
• Chapter 16: Advanced Table Examples
• Chapter 17: Trees
• Chapter 18: Undo
• Chapter 19: Text 101
• Chapter 20: Formatted Text Fields
• Chapter 21: Carets, Highlighters, and Keymaps
• Chapter 22: Styled Text Panes
• Chapter 23: Editor Panes and Editor Kits
• Chapter 24: Drag and Drop
• Chapter 25: Programming with Accessibility
• Chapter 26: Look and Feel
• Chapter 27: Swing Utilities
• Chapter 28: Swing Under the Hood
• Appendix A: Look-and-Feel Resources
• Appendix B: Component Actions
• Colophon