The Creating a User Interface trail covers
everything you need to know
about creating a user interface (UI) for a Java program.
Note:
All the material covered in this trail applies
to both applets and applications,
except for a few clearly marked exceptions.
Overview
of the Java UI
tells you about the pieces the Java environment provides
for building UIs.
It introduces you to the graphical UI components
and other UI-related classes provided in the Java environment.
It also gives an overview of
how programs display themselves
and how they handle events such as mouse clicks.
You should fully understand the information in this lesson
before going on to other lessons in this trail.
Using Components,
the GUI Building Blocks
tells you
how to use each of the AWT UI components.
It also has detailed discussions of implementing custom components,
handling events in the 1.1 AWT event system,
and the component architecture.
Note:
We recommend that instead of using AWT components,
you use Swing components.
The Swing components, which are part of the
Java Foundation Classes (JFC),
can be used with either JDK 1.1 or JDK 1.2.
See the next lesson for details.
Using the JFC/Swing
Packages
tells you how to download and use the Swing release,
which is part of the JFC.
This lesson has detailed discussions
of using each Swing component
and other commonly used Swing API.
Laying Out
Components within a Container
tells you how to choose a layout manager,
how to use each of the layout manager classes the Java environment provides,
how to use absolute positioning instead of a layout manager,
and how to create your own layout manager.
It also discusses solutions to common layout problems.
Working
with Graphics
tells you how to do everything from drawing lines and text
to loading, displaying, and manipulating images.
It includes information on performing animation
and on improving graphics performance.
A Note about the Examples:
Most of the example programs in this chapter are applets.
This lets you easily run them
just by visiting the relevant pages in the online tutorial.
But don't let the fact that the examples are applets confuse you --
writing an application with a GUI
is very similar to writing an applet with a GUI.
See Component Problems
(and Their Solutions)
for information on the differences between applets and applications,
and on converting an applet into an application.
