What's and What's Old? The History of the Tutorial

Lains's Birthday Release: An Update, 14 Aug 98

• Added Programming with Java IDL trail.
• Added Security in JDK 1.2 trail.
• Reviewed and edited various trails and lesson.
• Added new material and examples to the JFC/Swing lesson.
• Fixed miscellaneous typos and broken links. Made minor improvements to text and examples all over the place.

Laine's Birthday Release, 3 Aug 98

• Added Collections trail.
• Added Servlets trail.
• Added The Java Extensions Mechanism trail.
• Added Reference Objects trail.
• Added new material and examples to the JFC/Swing lesson. Completed technical reviews for many pages and integrated engineering feedback.
• Reviewed and edited javabeans and jar trails.
• Fixed miscellaneous typos and broken links. Made minor improvements to text and examples all over the place.

The Summer Solstice Release, 26 June 98

• Added a lot of new material and examples to the JFC/Swing lesson.
• Updated information about hashCode and equals.
• Added a bios page that contains information about our contributing authors.
• Reviewed and edited internationalization, reflection, and native trails.
• Fixed miscellaneous typos and broken links. Improved some text and some examples.

Nettle Day (UK), 29 May 98

• Added JAR trail.
• Added 4 new topics to the internationalization trail: comparing strings, text boundaries, conversions, and a checklist for internationalizing existing programs.
• Added demo programs to the date and number formatting lessons.
• Reorganized JavaBeans trail.
• Added a lot of new material and examples to the JFC/Swing lesson.
• Reviewed native methods trail and made associated changes and fixes.
• Fixed miscellaneous typos and broken links. Improved some text and some examples.

Arbor Day, 24 April 98

• WooHoo! New front page! New Trail map!
• New look for trail-level TOC.html files. Also, removed lesson-level TOC.html files. Instead we now provide a link to the appropriate place within the trail-level TOC.html files.
• Continued to add new pages to the JFC/Swing lesson.
• Added a new lesson to the internationalizaton trail covering formatting.
• Added trail on reflection.
• Added some information to the native methods trail for Mac programmers.
• Fixed typos, broken links, and various other minor problems with content
• Removed the old internationalization trail.
• Removed old native methods trail...provide a downloadable archive instead.
• Updated errata page for second edition of the book.

The Vernal Equinox, 20 March 98

• Changed the background color to white.
• Finished integrating figures from the new, second, edition of the book. Figures and images are now kept together at the top-level instead of sprinkled throughout the lesson directories.
• Added book.html and related pages for the second editon of the book. Changed the page design of the book.html and related pages for the first edition to match the second edition.
• Did a bunch of work behind the scenes on our tools and processes. This is the first update of the tutorial from our new workspace with our new makefiles and build process.
• Because of our lovely new tools, we can now easily provide a downloadable archive of all of the examples in the book. See Download the Tutorial for the ftp links.
• Fixed various typos and other minor problems with content.
• Updated the Swing material relating to the JDK 1.2.

The long awaited update!-- this is a major update of the tutorial. Almost every file has been touched in some way.

This release of the online tutorial corresponds with the release of the 2nd edition of The Java Tutorial book and is the version of the online tutorial that appears on the CD-ROM that accompanies that book.

The changes are in progress, but to a large extent we have integrated 1.1 information into the existing trails, lessons, and examples. This is in sharp contrast to the 1.1 notes that were littered throughout the previous version of the tutorial and were, admittedly, somewhat confusing.

Also, we are in the process of integrating copyedit and other changes made to the book version, into the online version. This has been completed thoroughly in some areas of the online tutorial, and spottily in other areas. We will continue with this process throughout the coming months.

New lessons in this tutorial that first appeared in print in the 2nd edition of The Java Tutorial book:

• The Java Phenomenon
• Migrating to 1.1
• A Preview of Things to Come

New trails for this version of the tutorial that haven't yet made it to print:

• Added a Putting It All Together trail that provides a large, real-world, client/server example and analyzes it.
• Got a totally new JavaBeans Tutorial by Andy Quinn!

• One of the goals of the tutorial is to document the latest and greatest from JavaSoft as it is released. To this end, we've added a lesson about Using the JFC "Swing" Release. The Swing release is an early release of part of the JFC. This information is only available from the Java Tutorial.
• Added a trail, Java Security 1.1, covering the new 1.1 security APIs.
• Updated the The JavaBeans(tm) Tutorial by Greg Voss.
• Promoted Writing Global Programs to a trail. This trail is still in progress, but it contains new material including several excellent demos from Taligent.
• Added information about the 1.1 release in our To 1.1 -- And Beyond! trail.
• Made the usual fixes to broken links, typos, and other errata.

14 May 97 We improved and added more 1.1 information in existing sections. We added more examples of and information about the various types of event listeners to The New AWT Event Model. We also fixed the AroundTheWorld applet used in Writing Global Programs.

28 April 97 We added a new trail, To 1.1 -- And Beyond!, which is the headquarters for features added to the JDK after 1.0. Also, the Learning the Java Language and Essential Java Classes trails now have notes that point out material that is affected by 1.1. And finally, we reorganized our top-level files to make them more accessible.

3 March 97 Added a brand new trail introducing JavaBeans! This trail, JavaBeans Tutorial, written by Greg Voss, shows you the ins and outs of developing programs using the JavaBeans technology.

19 February 97

• Our new "guest author" program debuts in this release of the tutorial with a completely new trail about writing native methods by Beth Stearns. Check it out: Using the Java Native Interface (JNI).
• Merged copyediting changes from the book into the on-line version in these two trails: Getting Started and Writing Applets.
• Updated Writing Global Programs to work with the FCS JDK 1.1 release.
• The usual miscellaneous fixes.

6 June 96 -- Released the Sixth DRAFT.

This draft is the version on which the book version is based. The book and online versions aren't exactly the same -- for example, none of the copyeditor's changes have made it into the online tutorial yet. Also, the online tutorial's figures haven't been updated to be the same as those in the book. Notable content changes since the fifth draft include:

• Finished the Common Problems pages.
• Added information on the Macintosh JDK.
• Added an applet anatomy section to Getting Started.
• Improved the talk server example in the applet communication lesson.

28 Mar 96 -- Released the Fifth DRAFT.

Many pages in this draft have been rewritten or expanded upon. (If you've sent us comments and don't see them reflected in this draft, please don't be insulted -- we haven't finished incorporating reviewer comments.) Some of the notable changes include:

• Revised Application Anatomy lesson and moved it to the Getting Started trail: The Anatomy of a Java Application. We plan to write an equivalent section for applets.
• Did major rewrites of the following lessons in the Java trail: The Nuts and Bolts of the Java Language and Objects and Classes in Java.
• Added new pages to the applet overview: Adding an Applet to an HTML Page and Summary.
• Beefed up the applet threads pages: Threads in Applets.
• Added a discussion of peers to the UI trail: Details of the Component Architecture.
• Added material to the native methods trail, Integrating Native Methods into Java Programs, including passing data into and out of native methods and accessing Java objects. Details of the Component Architecture.
• Removed some trails: comparison to C/C++, troubleshooting, and tools. This information has been (or will be) incorporated into other trails/lessons.

4 Mar 96 -- Released the Fourth DRAFT

Among the normal bug, typo and broken link fixes, this draft includes revisions to many of our old trails and lessons, plus this new material:

• Added a new lesson to Integrating Native Methods into Java Programs trail.
• Added new material to and/or wrote from scratch 4 lessons in the Writing Applets . trail. Including: Creating an Applet User Interface, Communicating with Other Programs, Understanding Applet Capabilities and Restrictions, and Finishing an Applet. (The first three have since been reorganized into two trails: Taking Advantage of the Applet API and Practical Considerations when Writing Applets.

24 Feb 96 -- Released the Third DRAFT

Among the normal bug, typo and broken link fixes, this draft includes revisions to many of our old trails and lessons, plus this new material:

• Added a lot of new material to Creating an Applet User Interface.
• Added new lessons to the Creating a User Interface . trail. Including:
  • Laying Out Components within a Container Please note that 3 pages are still under construction.
  • Using Components, the GUI Building Blocks Each component now has a page describing how to use it.
  • Working with Graphics There's now information on how to draw primitive graphics (including text) and images, plus information on performing animation. The animation pages include information on how to eliminate flashing, using update() and double buffering. They also have information on using MediaTracker.
• Added a new trail: Custom Networking .
• Added a new lesson, Input and Output Streams to the Essential Java Classes trail.

23 Jan 96 -- Updated the Second DRAFT

• Updated links to point to new FCS1.0 JDK release.
• Fixed bugs where some applets and sources files were missing.
• Miscellaneous fixes of typos, bugs, and broken links.

18 Jan 96 -- Updated the Second DRAFT

• Changed the Creating a User Interface trail to reflect the event changes introduced in Beta2. Specifically, keyboard event handlers now have to return false, unless they want the event to be dropped. The Conversion example program and the overview were affected.
• Revised the structure of the tutorial to reflect what we're going to be able to finish by the time the book version is due to the printer.
• Added a very preliminary lesson on Java's object features-- Java Objects.
• Fixed various typos, bugs and broken links.

12 Dec 95 -- Updated the Second DRAFT

• Made the few changes necessary to reflect Beta2 instead of Beta.
• Fixed various typos, bugs and broken links.
• Added a new lesson, Handling Errors using Exceptions, in the Essential Java Classes trail.

13 Nov 95 -- Updated the Second DRAFT

• Made the few changes necessary to reflect Beta instead of Pre-Beta.
• Changed the name of this document from "The Java Programmer's Guide" to "The Java Language Tutorial: Object-Oriented Programming for the Internet." Why the long name? This document is going to be published as a book, and we wanted to make sure the title was as descriptive as possible, without requiring much prior knowledge of the potential buyer.
• Added ALT text to our link graphics, so that people using non-graphical browsers can understand the information the graphic was conveying.
• Added a new lesson, Using Layout Managers, in the Creating a User Interface trail.

2 Oct 95 -- Released the Second DRAFT

• Everything was updated to reflect the new APIs (except for The "run:" Protocol Handler and The "text/plain" Content Handler in the Getting Started trail).
• We fixed many typos, clarified many obfuscations, fixed broken links and miscommunications.
• We got a face-lift with new icons and a new page design.
• And, we added these trails and lessons:
  • The Writing Applets trail has a new lesson: Overview of Applets which describes how applets work and how you use the Applet class to create an applet.
  • The new Creating a User Interface trail has two new lessons: Overview of UI Elements which introduces you to the objects that the Java development environment provides for building UIs, and Arranging Components within a Container which tells you how to use each of the Components provided in the AWT.
  • We've also added the Integrating Native Methods into Java Programs trail that shows you how to integrate native methods into your Java programs.
  • And finally, we've added two new lessons: Threads of Control and Object-Oriented Programming Concepts.

18 May 95 -- Released the First DRAFT