Chapter 7
Advanced GUI Programming
IT'S POSSIBLE TO PROGRAM A WIDE VARIETY
of GUI applications using only the techniques covered in the previous
chapter. In many cases, the basic events, components, layouts,
and graphics routines covered in that chapter suffice. But
the Swing graphical user interface library is far richer than what
we have seen so far, and it can be used to build highly sophisticated
applications. This chapter is a further introduction to Swing.
Although the title of the chapter is "Advanced GUI Programming,"
it is still just an introduction. Full coverage of Swing would
require at least another complete book.
In this chapter, we'll take a more detailed look at Swing,
starting with a few more
features of the Graphics class. We'll cover a number of
new layout managers, component classes, and event types, and we'll see how
to open independent windows and dialog boxes on the screen. We'll
also look at two other programming techniques, timers and threads.
The material in this chapter will be used in a number of examples
and programming exercises in future
chapters. Aside from that, this chapter is
not a prerequisite the rest of this textbook. If you skip it, you will
not miss out on any fundamental programming concepts -- just a lot of
the fun of GUI programming.
Contents Chapter 7:
