Lecture 13: An Introduction to JFC Swing

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Lecture 13 An Introduction to JFC Swing
G6DHLL High Level Languages
Dr. Natalio Krasnogor Natalio.Krasnogor_at_Nottingham
.ac.uk
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The Java Section

• 5 lectures a revision lecture at the end.
• Todays Lecture
• Intro to interface programming
• Intro to Swing
• Reading list
• Difference between AWT and Swing
• Getting Starting with Swing

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2D interface programming toolkits

• Tcl/Tk
• Motif/UIL
• IDEs (e.g. Microsoft VBasic, VC)
• Java AWT
• Java JFC Swing
• JBuilder and other Java IDEs

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What is Swing?

• The Java Foundation Classes
• Swing
• Look and feel
• Accessibility
• Java 2D (Java 2 onwards)
• Drag and Drop
• Interfaces and Applets

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On-line reading and reference

• The Swing connection - http//java.sun.com/product
  s/jfc/tsc/
• The JFC Swing trail -http//java.sun.com/docs/book
  s/tutorial/uiswing/
• Fundamentals of JFC/Swing I II
  -http//developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTra
  ining/

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Books

• The JFC Swing Tutorial (1999), K. Walrath and M.
  Campione, Addison Wesley
• Java Swing (1998), Robert Eckstein, Mark Loy,
  Dave Wood, O'Reilly

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Getting started with Swing (1)

• Compiling running programs
• The Java 1.1 Swing release
• Swing is standard in Java 2 (JDK 1.2, )
• Use javac ltprogram.javagt
• java ltprogramgt

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Getting started with Swing (2)

• Computer Science gubbins
• PCs
• Java 2 (1.4) on hard disk at \cs\java
• Unix (tuck and much)
• Java 2 (1.4.1) in /usr/bin (or /usr/java)
• Differences between previous versions and 1.4
• http//java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/swing/Sw
  ingChanges.html
• Java SDK 1.4

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Getting started with Swing (3)

• Swing API packages
• javax.swing, javax.accessibility,
  javax.swing.border
• At the start of your code - always
• import javax.swing
• import javax.swing.event
• Most Swing programs also need
• import java.awt.
• import java.awt.event.

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Differences between Swing and AWT (1)

• Never mix Swing and AWT components
• If you know AWT, put J in front of everything
• AWT Button
• Swing JButton
• Improved capabilities

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Differences between Swing and AWT (2)

• Buttons and labels can display images
• Behaviour and appearance of components
• Component shape
• Borders
• Look and feel of the programs GUI

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A simple Swing program

• Containers
• Components
• Events
• Graphics
• (Threads)

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A simple Swing program - Containers

• Containers

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If you remember one thing about containers,
remember this

• The structure of container use is your design
  decision and should always be thought about in
  advance
• particularly for managing components
• nesting containers

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A simple Swing program - Components

• Components

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If you remember one thing about components,
remember this

• There are many components that make your job much
  easier
• Often, you will be able to customise an existing
  Swing component to do a job for you, instead of
  having to start from scratch

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A simple Swing program - Events

• Events

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If you remember one thing about events, remember
this

• Events as seen by GUIs do not happen all that
  often in an application
• Consider what is happening between events as well
  as during them

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A simple Swing program - Graphics

• Graphics

      
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If you remember one thing about graphics,
remember this

• There are many aspects of Swing that allow you to
  achieve graphics-like things without actually
  using Graphics
• Therefore, you dont have to use them most of the
  time, and it is easier not to

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A simple Swing program - Threads

• Most simple Swing GUI applications dont require
  use of any (extra) threads
• As Swing creates event-driven programs, all code
  is executed on the event-dispatching thread
• See the example.

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If you remember one thing about threads, remember
this

• The single-thread rule
• Once a Swing component has been realized, all
  code that might affect or depend on the state of
  that component should be executed in the
  event-dispatching thread
• (with some exceptions)

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Summary

• 2D interface programming toolkits
• JFC/Swing
• AWT and Swing
• Getting started with Swing
• Parts of a simple Swing program
• Next time Components and Containers