SWING 101.0
IF YOU GET LOST - IMPORTANT LINKS
 Swing articles:
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http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/desktop/articles.jsp
Swing Architecture:
http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/architecture/
Visual Editor for Eclipse:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/VE/Update#Online_Install
Oracle Swing tutorial:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/
Stack Overflow:
http://stackoverflow.com/
 Basic Swing tutorial:
http://zetcode.com/tutorials/javaswingtutorial/
SWING COMPONENTS HIERARCHY
 Tutorial
 http://www.docstoc.com/docs/33446046/Java-Swing#
 Components
 http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/ui/features/compWin.html
 Layout
 http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/visual.html
PAINT AND LAYOUT
 Swing components painting and layout order
 First you set properties on components
 Then swings lays outs components
 Then paints them
 Note: until the top level container has been set to visible and laid out you can not know
the size and location of your component
 paint, repaint, invalidate, validate
 paint() – paints the component. Invoked internally by Swing – DO NOT USE
 repaint() – instructs Swing to paint the given region when the “time is right” – Safe to use
 validate() –checks if the container (and its children) have been changed and if so instructs
Swing to perform a re-layout
 invalidate() –marks a container as invalid but does not perform a re-layout
CONTAINERS
 The main containers are: JPanel, JSplitPane, JScrollPane and JTabbedPane
 Have properties that defines their looks and behavior (just like
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components)
Don’t have data models
Have events (mouse events, size changes events, etc.)
Adding components– add the component to the children list of the
container and set the component parent to be the container
When you add a component you link it to the container – not create a
copy of it in the container
getParent() – for containers and components
getChildren() – for containers only
Each component or container has a single parent
LAYOUT MANAGER
 Only valid for containers
 Automatically set the size and location of all the child components in
the container
 Different layout algorithms – some have properties (for example: gap
between components)
 Some require additional data for each child component – that data
should be added in advanced when adding a component to a container
 Settings size constrains (size, preferred, minimum, maximum)
 http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/visual.html
COMPLEX LAYOUT
 A container an contains child containers (same as components)
 When it resizes – all of its child containers will be resized as well and
then re-layout their child component recursively
 You can mix different layout algorithms (for example: a JPanel with
Border Layout that contains 3 JPanels with Flow Layout each)
ACTIONS
 Just like the interface Runnable – this is Swing’s way to pass “a
parameter of a method to a component” – meaning, pass some code to
execute when a common event occurs
 Actions are not JComponents (not UI objects)
 The same action instance can be passed to several UI components
(menu item, JButton, etc.)
 Actions have properties for the component that will use them:
 Label
 Icon
 Tooltip
DIALOGS
 JDialogs are Top-Level containers
 Open a dialog that displayed some content (like JFrame)
 To set custom content – add it to the dialog’s content pane
 After calling setVisible(true) on a dialog – no events are dispatched to
the rest of the UI components (except in the dialog itself)
 You can customize the dialog’s buttons (change the number of buttons,
the text on each button, etc.)
 http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/components/dialog.ht
ml
GUI EDITORS
 Great for all the things in the world… except when you need to change
a component programmatically
 Here are some recommendations:
 NetBeans
 JFormDesigner
 Eclipse UI editor
 Another issue – some editors might add dependencies on external Jars
(which you’ll need to bundle with your complied code in order for it to
execute)
 Adding external jars to project
OTHER SWING STUFF
 Menus
 Renderers (and Editors)
 How to set native look and feel
 Selection events, change events(Optional)