The Swing Reader
This is a short collection of things to read about Swing. Swing is remarkable for its hype, complexity, and lack of useful documentation. If any of the links below fail, try replacing "swingdoc-current" in the URL with "swingdoc-archive," or go to the Swing Connection.
Useful
- An overview of Swing Architecture
- Best architectural description yet. Worth more than the whole Gutz book.
- Understanding containers
- Good intro to the basic architecture of windows.
- Installing a UI delegate
- Sequence diagram of how a UI delegate is attached to a JComponent. Useful.
- Mixing heavy and light components
- Good explanation of the differences between heavy-weight and light-weight components. I still want to know why light-weight components are so slow.
- Threads and Swing
- Why not to use threads in Swing, and how to use them if you need to. A Gutz book and a half.
- Using a Swing worker thread
- Detailed instructions on using SwingWorker to create an independent thread. Good stuff -- worth at least two Gutz books. Looks like it requires Swing 1.02 -- SwingWorker isn't in JDK1.2 beta3.
- The Swing Text package
- Thank God -- information on how the swing.text package works, to make up for the lousy javadoc! Must be worth two Gutz books.
Vaguely useful
- Java foundation classes: now and the future
- Marketing material, but contains some useful overview material. Worth a scan.
- Customize a test editor
- How to do a Java-aware text editor. Includes source code. Looks invaluable if you need to do it.
- The Swing 1.02 File Chooser
- Yawn, snore. Useful if you need it.
- Swing Short Course, Part I and Swing Short Course, Part II
- Yawn, but has some useful sections if you need to get started on something. Some of it is out-of-date. You need to register with the Java developer connection.
- Using the JFC/Swing Packages
- From the Java tutorial. A lot of the more interesting material seems to have come from the links above anyway. About 0.75 of a Gutz book (but much cheaper).
Garbage
Books
- Up to Speed With Swing: User Interfaces With Java Foundation Classes by Steven Gutz.
- Basically a bunch of widget demos. I couldn't find the in-depth information I was after, like how the double-buffering works. Seems reasonably well-written, so you might like it if you want a toothless introduction.
- Programming With Jfc by Scott Weiner and Stephen Asbury
- Looks from the Amazon reviews to be toothless like the Gutz book.
- Java Foundation Classes by Matthew Nelson
- Got one review on Amazon, with a score of 10. I'm waiting for a copy.