Swing (Java)

Swing is a GUI toolkit for Java. Swing is one part of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). Swing includes graphical user interface (GUI) widgets such as text boxes, buttons, split-panes, and tables.

SWING gives much fancier screen displays than the raw AWT. Since they are written in pure Java, they run the same on all platforms, unlike the AWT. They are part of the JFC. They support pluggable look and feel — not by using the native platform's facilities but by roughly emulating them. This means you can get any supported look and feel on any platform. The disadvantage of lightweight components is slower execution. The advantage is uniform behaviour on all platforms.

Contents

1 The program 2 History 3 Relationship to AWT 4 Relationship to SWT 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

The program

Swing Program

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1helloworldswing-1-.gif
Image:1helloworldswing-1-.gif

Code for HelloWorldSwing:

import javax.swing.*; public class HelloWorldSwing {

   /**
    * Create the GUI and show it.  For thread safety,
    * this method should be invoked from the
    * event-dispatching thread.
    */
   private static void createAndShowGUI() {
       //Make sure we have nice window decorations.
       JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);

       //Create and set up the window.
       JFrame frame = new JFrame("HelloWorldSwing");
       frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

       //Add the ubiquitous "Hello World" label.
       JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World");
       frame.getContentPane().add(label);

       //Display the window.
       frame.pack();
       frame.setVisible(true);
   }

public static void main(String[] args) {

       //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
       //creating and showing this application's GUI.
       javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
           public void run() {
               createAndShowGUI();
           }
       });
   }

}

History

The Internet Foundation Classes (IFC) were a graphics library for the Java programming language originally developed by Netscape Communications Corporation and first released on December 16 1996.

On April 2 1997, Sun Microsystems and Netscape Communications Corporation announced their intention to combine IFC with other technologies to form the Java Foundation Classes. In addition to the components originally provided by IFC, Swing introduced a mechanism that allowed the look and feel of every component in an application to be altered without making substantial changes to the application code. The introduction of support for a pluggable look and feel allowed Swing components to emulate the appearance of native components while still retaining the benefits of platform independence.

Relationship to AWT

Since early versions of Java, a portion of the Abstract Windowing Toolkit has provided platform independent APIs for user interface components. In AWT, each component is rendered and controlled by a native peer component specific to the underlying Windowing system.

By contrast, Swing components are often described as lightweight because they do not require allocation of native resources in the operating system's windowing toolkit.

Much of the Swing API is generally a complementary extension of the AWT rather than a direct replacement. The core rendering functionality used by Swing to draw its lightweight components is provided by Java2D, a part of AWT. However, the use of lightweight and heavyweight components in the same application is generally discouraged due to Z-order incompatibilities.

Relationship to SWT

The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is a competing toolkit originally developed by IBM and now maintained by the Eclipse Foundation. SWT's implementation has more in common with the heavyweight components of AWT. This confers benefits such as more accurate fidelity with the underlying native windowing toolkit, at the cost of an increased exposure to the native resources in the programming model.

The advent of SWT has given rise to a great deal of division among Java desktop developers with many strongly favouring either SWT or Swing. A renewed focus on Swing look and feel fidelity with the native windowing toolkit in the approaching 6.0 release of Java is probably a direct result of this.

See also

• Project Looking Glass
• wxWidgets
• Event Dispatch Thread
• SwingWorker

References

• Matthew Robinson: Swing, Manning, ISBN 1-930110-88-X
• David M. Geary: Graphic Java 2, Volume 2: Swing, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-079667-0
• James Elliott, Robert Eckstein, Marc Loy, David Wood, Brian Cole: Java Swing, O'Reilly, ISBN 0-596-00408-7
• Kathy Walrath, Mary Campione, Alison Huml, Sharon Zakhour: The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs, Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-201-91467-0

External links

• The Swing Tutorial (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/index.html)
• The Swing Connection (http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/index.html)
• JavaDesktop (http://community.java.net/javadesktop/)
• Java Look And Feel (http://www.javootoo.com/)
• ClientJava.com (http://www.clientjava.com/)
• Presentation "Professional Swing: Creating Polished Apps (http://javalobby.org/eps/galbraith-swing-1/)" by Ben Galbraith
• Article "What does "Swing is Slow" mean? (http://javalobby.org/articles/swing_slow/index.jsp)" by Sermet Yucel
• Article "Java Desktop Development (http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/02/18/desktop.html)" by Andrei Cioroianu
• Article "BlackMamba: A Swing Case Study (http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/03/10/blackmamba.html)" by Ashwin Jayaprakash
• Articles on AWT/Swing (http://www.javaworld.com/channel_content/jw-awt-index.shtml)
• Citations from CiteSeer (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cis?q=Java+Swing)
• Swing wiki (http://www.swingwiki.org) containing best practices, tips, tricks and howto tutorialsde:Swing (Java)

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