Java Swing, Second Edition

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 1280 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
• Edition: 2nd Edition November 1, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596004087
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596004088
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 2 inches
• Weighs: 3.6 pounds

Product 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, awesomely 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. 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 requirements 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.

Reader Reviews
"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. Comment | | (Report this)