| View: | [ 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 ] |
| Articles Books | Tips |
- Easily switch from Visual Basic to a Swing-based platform by Mario H. Castillo - [Clicks: 68]
More and more application developers are moving to Java/Swing as their platform of choice. The open source AbaGUIBuilder, introduced in this article, makes the transition a much easier one by providing a familiar paradigm similar to Visual Basic or Delphi.
[Includes source code]
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2005/jw-1219-abacus.html - Dec, 2005 - Hacking Swing: A JDBC Table Model by Joshua Marinacci, Chris Adamson - [Clicks: 135]
Editor's note: Swing Hacks is not just about visual trickery, as this excerpt illustrates. The book's purpose is to enable developers to deliver more compelling desktop applications with Java, and this hack is an example of that, working not with the visuals of a JTable, but the model behind it. By leveraging the JDBC support provided by J2SE, you can map a database table into a Swing TableModel, which then lets you expose it as a JTable. Read on for the nitty-gritty.
[O'Reilly Book Excerpts: Swing Hacks]
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/excerpt/swinghks_hack24/index.html - Nov, 2005 - Customize Your JList Display by John O'Conner - [Clicks: 56]
The Java platform's Java Foundation Classes/Swing (JFC/Swing) components are a complete package of graphical user interface (GUI) widgets. By using Swing components, you can create rich, easy-to-use GUIs in your applications. Using these components can greatly improve your application's user-friendliness. This article focuses on one component, the javax.swing.JList object, and shows you how to customize what it displays to the user.
[Includes source code]
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/GUI/jlist/ - Nov, 2005 - Hacking Swing: Translucent Windows by Joshua Marinacci, Chris Adamson - [Clicks: 98]
Editor's note: The following example from Swing Hacks is one of the book's most visually daring hacks--mimicking the arbitrarily shaped window you might see in an native MP3 player skin. The hack here is necessitated by the fact that Java doesn't support non-rectangular windows, so the only option to make this work is for the Java window to be aware of what's under it, and to handle the imaging of areas within the window's rectangle but not within its arbitrary shape. Read on for how this is accomplished.
[O'Reilly Book Excerpts: Swing Hacks]
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/excerpt/swinghks_hack41/index.html - Nov, 2005 - Accessing a PDF Document with the Acrobat Viewer JavaBean by Deepak Vohra - [Clicks: 94]
Deepak Vohra introduces the Adobe Acrobat Viewer JavaBean, which embeds PDF viewing functionality in an AWT component.
[Includes sample code]
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/10/20/accessing-pdf-with-acrobat-viewer-javabean.html - Oct, 2005 - Add spice to your splash screen with animation by Michael Bangham - [Clicks: 87]
No doubt about it, animation is neat -- what programmer hasn't thought about creating his own game? You can satisfy your creative streak by adding a little animation to your splash screen to grab your users' attentions as soon as they start your application. In this article, you'll learn how to create a dynamic splash screen in Java. The characters on the splash screen will fly in from all sides falling into place to reveal the desired image. To make the view realistic, you'll incorporate a little physics along the way.
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-2005/jw-1003-animate.html - Oct, 2005 - The Definitive Guide to Java Swing: Spinner Model Controls by John Zukowski - [Clicks: 46]
In this article, an excerpt from The Definitive Guide to Java Swing (Apress, June 2005; ISBN: 1590594479), John Zukowski explains how to work with the JSpinner component.
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-2005/jw-0829-jspinner.html - Aug, 2005 - Hacking Swing with Undocumented Classes and Properties by Joshua Marinacci - [Clicks: 57]
Joshua Marinacci, coauthor of Swing Hacks, shows you six undocumented features, classes, and properties that let you hack into Swing. From how to hide a frame from the Windows task bar to how to make Mac OS X windows truly transparent, these undocumented hacks can add a level of polish that will make your apps stand out from the rest.
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/08/10/swinghacks.html - Aug, 2005 - A Simple Interactive JTable Tutorial by Lenming Yeung - [Clicks: 134]
The standard JTable does not come with an interactive mode and adding a simple record often requires an 'Add' button. This example will show you a table containing Title, Artist and Album, without the need for an 'Add' button.
http://www.javalobby.org/articles/jtable/ - Jul, 2005 - Interaction Happens: Thinking Graphically by Jonathan Simon - [Clicks: 57]
This article takes a holistic view at the problem space. We'll take a look at three different user interface design issues from an interaction perspective. Following that, we'll look at an interaction design solutions to these problems that I've used and seen others use on countless projects. Finally, we'll implement them in Swing, exploring the technical details of implementing these designs. The goal is to understand, through practical examples, that there is a single problem space from interaction design to code. Along the way, you'll also see some code examples of Swing techniques you may not have used before, but might find interesting (think transparent painting and rounded borders).
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/07/12/visualizations.html - Jul, 2005 - Use high-level MVC and POJOs with Swing by Tomi Tuomainen - [Clicks: 168]
TikeSwing is an open source Swing framework that provides a high-level Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture and simplifies the usage of Swing components. The framework supports the plain-old-Java-object (POJO) programming model by connecting view components directly to JavaBeans. This article describes TikeSwing's features and demonstrates how to build a clear MVC architecture with the framework.
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-06-2005/jw-0620-tikeswing.html - Jun, 2005 - Introduction to JGoodies Binding by Rob Smith - [Clicks: 194]
JGoodies Binding makes binding domain object properties to UI components a breeze. This article has demonstrated how using the Binding API can make your code easier to implement and maintain. If you find the Binding API useful you should consider licensing the JGoodies Swing Suite. The Suite is built on top of the various open source JGoodies libraries and provides a strong foundation and quick start for building rich client applications in Swing.
http://www.ociweb.com/jnb/jnbJun2005.html - Jun, 2005 - Building Easy Java GUIs with Thinlet, Part 2 by Keld H. Hansen - [Clicks: 121]
Part 1 of this series presented the architecture of a Thinlet application: a Java program and an XML configuration file defining the GUI—that's how simple it is. Part 2 explores some of Thinlet's more advanced features - like menus, dialogs, tabbed panes, and trees.
http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/thinlettwo/index.html - Mar, 2005 - Buoy makes simple Java UI programming a snap by Peter Seebach - [Clicks: 64]
Buoy, a free user-interface (UI) tool kit built on top of Swing, offers convenience and simplicity to UI developers. In this article, developer and writer Peter Seebach takes a look at what Buoy does and why it works, using a simple fractal UI program.
[Includes source code]
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-buoy/ - Mar, 2005 - Building Easy Java GUIs with Thinlet, Part 1 by Keld H. Hansen - [Clicks: 74]
Swing may be ubiquitous, but it can also be far too complex for many simpler tasks. Luckily, there's a tool called Thinlet that simplifies GUI development by defining GUIs in XML files. Part 1 of this series takes you through Thinlet's features, demonstrating why this is a very interesting and useful way to build a user interface.
http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/thinletone/index.html - Mar, 2005 - Intro to JGoodies Forms by Lance Finney - [Clicks: 323]
This article introduces the JGoodies Forms framework, particularly in comparison to GridBagLayout, which is likely the most popular Sun-provided Layout Manager. A simple GUI is created using GridBagLayout to point out some of its complications. After an explanation of the primary differences between the GridBagLayout approach and the Forms approach, the same simple GUI is rewritten using Forms' PanelBuilder to point out the advantages. The simple GUI is rebuilt one more time to point out the further advantages of a more advanced builder from JGoodies, DefaultFormBuilder. The article ends with a demonstration of the debugging utilities in Forms.
http://www.ociweb.com/jnb/jnbMar2005.html - Mar, 2005 - XUI: Finally, a Java GUI Framework You Can Love by Laurence Moroney - [Clicks: 91]
One of the banes of Java GUI development is in the clean separation of GUI definition and control and business logic. Enter XUI, a new framework for Java that has the ambitious aim of not just solving this problem but of making it easy.
[Includes source source]
http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/27383 - Feb, 2005 - Creating Wizard Dialogs with Java Swing by Robert Eckstein - [Clicks: 132]
Wizard dialogs are ubiquitous in today's desktop applications. What exactly is a wizard dialog? Well, you've likely run across several wizard dialogs already, either when you're installing a pre-packaged application, or you're configuring a series of program options. In this article, I will create a framework for a simple wizard dialog that you can extend as necessary.
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/GUI/swing/wizard/index.html - Feb, 2005 - Asserting Control Over the GUI: Commands, Defaults, and Resource Bundles by Hans Muller - [Clicks: 37]
This article is about defining Swing application behavior. It's about combining low-level J2SE primitives, like Actions, ResourceBundles, and UIDefaults, in a way that's appropriate for moderately large desktop Java applications. The article begins with a review of event handling, Swing actions, and conventional approaches for defining them. The second half of the article demonstrates how one can separate an Action's visual properties into a ResourceBundle that's loaded through Swing's UIDefaults API. In addition to enabling localization, this approach shifts some of the GUI from code to a declarative representation. That's an advantage for large applications, because the declarative aspect of the application can be developed independently from the code.
[Includes source code]
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/01/31/controlGUI.html - Jan, 2005 - Developing Custom Swing Components With Test Driven Development by Santosh Shanbhag - [Clicks: 62]
Developing Swing components while staying on the path of test driven development has no doubt challenged many seasoned Swing developers. Many aspects of GUI testing are indeed not that complicated as long as one adopts the simplicity principle. Moreover, there are quite a few Swing testing frameworks that make it easier to test Swing applications - Abbot and Jemmy being amongst the most popular. This article focuses on developing a couple of custom Swing GUI components using test driven techniques. We will also develop a simple GUI testing helper class that will aid us in testing our custom components. This article does not cover any GUI testing framework and the reader is advised to look them up elsewhere.
http://www.ociweb.com/jnb/jnbJan2005.html - Jan, 2005
- Swing Hacks. Tips & Tools for Killer GUIs
by Joshua Marinacci, Chris Adamson - [Clicks: 78]
Swing Hacks helps Java developers move beyond the basics of Swing, the graphical user interface (GUI) standard since Java 2. The unique Hacks format provides short advanced tricks that you can instantly apply to increase your competency with interface-building tools. Example hacks include how to filter lists, power-up trees and tables, and add drag-and-drop support.
O'Reilly Media, Inc., Paperback - Jun, 2005
- Customizing Window Adornments by John Zukowski - [Clicks: 73]
Prior to the 1.4 release of J2SE, all dialogs and frames were created with titlebars that included platform-specific decorations. For instance, on a Microsoft Windows platform, the titlebar displayed an icon on the left and a title to its right. Window control decorations were displayed on the right side of the title bar: up to three gray boxes, one box each for minimize, maximize and close operations (depending on which were supported by the current window). However you couldn't control the appearance of the decorations because they were drawn by the system. However with the J2SE 1.4 release, this changed. Specifically, J2SE 1.4 added support for undecorated frames and dialogs. For example, you could now create a frame, and before showing it, call setUndecorated(true).
http://java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2005/tt0118.html#2 - Jan, 2005
