Because Learning Never Stop!

GUI Programming

in Java
Presented by Thanh Pham
thanh.phamhong@niithoasen.com
06/2007
B070038 – NIIT Quang Trung
 Contents

1 Basic Concepts

2 AWT and Swing Control Components

3 Layout Manager

4 Event Handling

5 Other References
 Basic Concepts

Basic Concepts

GUI? AWT Demos Exercises

vs. Swing
 GUI?

 Graphical User Interface (pronounced "GOO-

ee“).
 Presents a user-friendly mechanism for
interacting with an application.
 Users can learn how to use an app quickly and
use it more productively.
 Ex: Internet Explorer, MS Word, JCreator…
 GUIs are built from GUI components (controls
or widgets-window gadget).
 A GUI component is an object with which the
user interacts via the mouse, the keyboard or
another form of input, such as voice recognition.
Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) vs. Swing

Similarities:
 Tools provided by Java for developing
interactive GUI applications
 Provides GUI components that can be used in
creating Java applications and applets
Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) vs. Swing

 AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit)

 Some AWT components use native code
 Platform-dependent
 Ensure that the look and feel of an application run on
different machines be comparable
 Swing
 Written entirely using the Java programming language
 Platform-independent
 Ensures applications deployed across different
platforms have the same appearance
 Built around a number of APIs that implement various
parts of the AWT
• Can be used with AWT
 Demo

MessageBox
InputBox
Create Frame (AWT)
Create Frame (Swing)
CenterFrame
 Exercises

Display two input-boxes that accepts two

numbers then shows the result.
Accepts three numbers, displays the
largest, smallest.
(Assume that all input values are valid
numbers)
Create a simple frame
AWT and Swing Control Components

AWT and Swing Control Components

AWT Swing Demos Exercises

 AWT Control Components

An AWT control is a component that

enables end users to interact with
applications created in Java.
All AWT controls in Java are subclasses
of the Component class.
The Component class provides the add()
method to add AWT components to
containers, such as an applet or a window.
 AWT Control Components

TextField
TextArea
Button
List
CheckBox
Choice
Labels
 Demo

FrameWithControl
 Swing Control Components

 Swing components contain the Pluggable Look and Feel

(PL&F) feature that allows applications to have the same
behavior on various platforms.
 Identifying the Swing Component Class Hierarchy
 The JComponent class is the root of the Swing hierarchy, which
is an extension of the AWT container class.
 The class hierarchy of the Swing components is categorized
into:
• Top-level Swing Containers: Acts as a container for placing the
intermediate-level and atomic swing components, such as panels,
frames, buttons, and check boxes.
• Intermediate-level Swing Containers: Placed on the top-level
containers and contains atomic components.
• Atomic Components: Placed on the intermediate-level swing
containers. Atomic components are used to accept input from a
user.
 Swing Control Components

 Using the Top-level Swing Containers

 JApplet
• The JApplet class is an extension of the AWT applet class.
• The Swing components that contain an applet need to
extend the JApplet class.
• The JApplet() constructor enables you to create a swing
applet instance when you create an instance of the JApplet
class.
 JFrame:
• The JFrame class is an extension of the AWT Frame class.
• You cannot add components directly to JFrame.
 Swing Control Components

 Using the Top-level Swing Containers (Cont.)

 JDialog
• The JDialog class is an extension of the AWT
java.awt.Dialog class.
 Using the Intermediate Level Swing Containers
 JPanel
• JPanel class is an extension of the JComponent class that
provides a replacement for the AWT Panel class.
• You create a panel and add various components to it.
• The panel is further added to the content pane, which
represents the display area of a window, a dialog, or a frame.
• JPanel supports all layout managers of AWT.
• By default, JPanel applies the flow layout manager.
 Swing Control Components

 Using the Intermediate Level Swing Containers (Contd.)

 JTabbedPane:
• The JTabbedPane class is used to create a tabbed pane
component that enables you to switch between groups of
components by clicking a tab with a given label.
• Tabs are added to the JTabbedPane object by using the addTab()
method.
• The JTabbedPane class enables you to add multiple components
but it displays only a single component at a time.
 Using the Atomic Components
 JButton
 JTextField
 JCheckBox
 JComboBox
 JLabel
 JRadioButton
 Demo

JFrameWithControl
Exercises
 Layout Managers

Layout Managers

Flow Border Grid Demo

Layout Layout Layout
 Layout Managers

 The layout managers are used to position the components, such as

an applet, a panel, or a frame in a container.
 The layout managers implement the java.awt.LayoutManager
interface.
 A layout manager is an instance of the LayoutManager interface in
Java.
 You can use the following method to apply the desired layout to the
components:
 void setLayout(layoutManager obj)
 In the preceding syntax, obj is the reference to the desired layout
manager.
 Java has various predefined classes of layout managers.
 All layout managers make use of the setLayout() method to set the
layout of a container.
 If the setLayout() method is not used, then the default layout of the
container is set.
 Layout Managers

 The different types of layout managers are:

 FlowLayout Manager
• The flow layout is the default layout manager used for the
Applet class.
• In the flow layout manager, the components are placed in a
container window in a sequence one after the other in rows.
• Java provides the FlowLayout class to apply flow layout to
the various components that you are inserting in an applet.
• You can use the following constructors to create an instance
of the FlowLayout class:
– FlowLayout()
– FlowLayout(int align)
– FlowLayout(int align, int hgap,int vgap)
 Layout Managers

 BorderLayout Manager
 BorderLayout is the default layout of the Frame class.
 The BorderLayout layout manager divides the container into
north, south, east, west, and centre regions.
 You can place five components or controls in each part.
 Java provides the BorderLayout class to apply the border layout
to the components.
 The setLayout() method is used for applying border layout to a
container.
 You specify the directions for the BorderLayout using the
BorderLayout.NORTH, BorderLayout.SOUTH,
BorderLayout.EAST, BorderLayout.WEST, and
BorderLayout.CENTER constants.
 You can use the following constructors to create an instance of
the BorderLayout class:
 BorderLayout()
 BorderLayout(int h, int v)
 Layout Managers

 GridLayout Manager
 The grid layout is the layout that divides the container
into rows and columns.
 The intersection of a row and a column of the grid
layout is called cell.
 The GridLayout class of Java enables you to create a
grid layout.
 All the components in a grid are of the same size.
 You can use the following constructors to create an
instance of the GridLayout class:
• GridLayout()
• GridLayout(int r, int c)
• GridLayout(int r, int c, int h, int v)
 Demo

FlowLayout
BorderLayout
GridLayout
 To be continued

To be continued….
 References

Java Passion from Sun Microsystems

Java Tutorial from Sun Microsystems
Core Java 2 Volume I Fundamentals 7th
Edition
Java How to Program 6th Edition
Java Swing 2nd Edition
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