Java Swing, 2nd Edition

What’s New in This Edition?

This second edition covers the latest developments in the Java 2 Standard Edition SDK 1.3 and 1.4. We’ve tried to highlight the changes from 1.2 in case you have to work with older releases for compatibility or political reasons.

For brevity’s sake, we refer to Java versions by their SDK version number, describing this or that feature as having been introduced in SDK 1.3 or 1.4. Earlier versions were called Java Development Kits, so in those cases we refer to JDK 1.1 or 1.2.

This new edition incorporated your feedback from the first edition! The first edition was too heavy on the documentation side for many readers. The Javadoc for the Swing packages continues to improve, and more and more people are familiar with the patterns of Java classes and methods. With those two facts in mind, we try to focus on the parts of the API that are interesting and useful rather than just including them because they exist. We added many new examples and improved the existing examples. This book is a true and thorough revision of the first edition, not a mere update.

As a quick reference to some of the changes you’ll find in the 1.3 and 1.4 releases of the SDK, Table P-1 and Table P-2 list any significant changes to components and briefly describe those changes. We detail these changes throughout the book as we discuss the particular components.

Table P-1. Swing changes in the Java 2 SDK 1.3

Component or feature	In chapter	Description of changes or additions
JTree	Chapter 17	Several new properties were added, including the click count to start editing and the selection path.
JTable	Chapter 15	Improved general performance and cell rendering. AbstractCellEditor is now the parent class of the DefaultCellEditor used by tables.
JSplitPane	Chapter 11	A new resizeWeight property was added, and the dividerLocationProperty is now bound.
JFileChooser	Chapter 12	You can now remove the Ok and Cancel buttons. A new property, acceptAllFileFilterUsed, was added.
JCheckBox	Chapter 5	Added new borderPaintedFlat property.
DefaultButtonModel	Chapter 5	Added new getGroup( ) method.
JInternalFrame	Chapter 9	Several fixes and newly public classes and methods. Internal frames are now invisible by default, and the default close operation is now DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE.
JTabbedPane	Chapter 11	Added new toolTipTextAt indexed property.
Text components	Chapter 19-Chapter 23	Several fixes applied. Several improvements in general HTML support via the HTMLEditorKit and related classes. (XHTML documents are still not supported.)
JViewport	Chapter 11	New scrollMode property added.
JComponent	Chapter 3	New print methods added: printComponent( ), printBorder( ), printChildren( ).
InputVerifier	Chapter 20	New class added.
Keyboard binding	Chapter 3, Appendix B	New keyboard binding mechanism added. New classes, InputMap and ActionMap, replace Keymap functionality.
Border s	Chapter 13	New LineBorder constructor to support rounded corners added.
Action s	Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 14	AbstractAction class was updated, and new constructors for JCheckBox, JRadioButton, JToggleButton, JMenu, JMenuItem, JCheckBoxMenuItem, and JRadioButtonMenuItem that use Action were added.
JToolBar	Chapter 14	Support for titling undocked toolbars added.
JPopupMenu	Chapter 14	Added new popupTrigger boolean property.
JFrame	Chapter 11	Added new EXIT_ON_CLOSE constant for use with the defaultCloseOperation property.
ListenerList	Chapter 27	Added getListeners( ) method to several model classes, including AbstractDocument, AbstractTableModel, AbstractListModel, DefaultButtonModel, DefaultTreeModel, and DefaultListSelectionModel.

Table P-2. Swing changes in the Java 2 SDK 1.4

Component or feature	In chapter	Description of changes or additions
JProgressBar	Chapter 6	Added support for indeterminate progress bars.
JSpinner	Chapter 7	Added new spinner class.
JFormattedTextField	Chapter 20	Added new formatted text field class that validates user input.
Focus	Chapter 3, Chapter 28	A new focus model and methodology was introduced. Several of the old-style focus methods and classes were deprecated as of 1.4.1.
Drag and Drop	Chapter 24	New architecture introduced, and dragEnabled and transferHandler properties added to several components.
Box	Chapter 11	Now descends from JComponent.
JButton	Chapter 5	More control over mnemonic underline location granted.
JComboBox	Chapter 7	Added PopupMenuListener and support for cell size prototyping.
JFileChooser	Chapter 12	Added support for modifying the properties of the Open button (such as its text and tooltip). Also added support for selecting multiple files. (The multiple file selection mode was introduced in the 1.2 release but was not implemented until 1.4.)
JInternalFrame	Chapter 9	Long titles are now truncated, and the title bar is rendered with a gradient.
Text components	Chapter 19-Chapter 23	Tooltip support was improved. HTML support, including accessibility in documents, was improved (XHTML is still not supported). New replace( ) method added to AbstractDocument.
JOptionPane	Chapter 10	New input dialog methods added.
JPopupMenu	Chapter 14	Now properly supports key bindings.
JTabbedPane	Chapter 11	Introduced scrollable tabs for panes with a large number of tabs. Mnemonic support for accessing tabs was also added.
JTree	Chapter 17	Null roots are now allowed, and first-letter keyboard navigation was added.
JList	Chapter 7	Items can now be arranged horizontally, and first-letter keyboard navigation was added.
SwingConstants	Chapter 27	New constants, NEXT and PREVIOUS, were added.
SwingUtilities	Chapter 27	New methods added, including calculateInnerArea( ) and applyComponentOrientation( )
LookAndFeel	Chapter 3, Chapter 26, Appendix B	General support for auditory cues was added. Access to Windows desktop properties was also added.
JComponent	Chapter 3	requestFocus( ) and requestFocusInWindow( ) methods are now public.
MouseWheelEventMouseWheelListener	Chapter 11	New event and listener for mouse wheels added.
JRootPane	Chapter 10	Look-and-feel can now supply window decoration.
JScrollBar	Chapter 6	Now properly overrides setUI( ).
JScrollPane	Chapter 11	Now supports mouse wheel events. (This support can be turned off.)
RepaintManager	Chapter 28	New method to return a VolatileImage.
SpringLayout	Chapter 11	New class (and supporting classes) added.