Professional Java User Interfaces

Chapter 15. An Example OO User Interface

In this chapter we will explore some software design techniques for building professional user interfaces, demonstrating a way to implement GUIs with the Java programming language by taking advantage of the OOUI conceptual approach introduced in Chapter 1, within the reference architecture introduced in the previous chapter. As well as providing a set of Java classes that implement this approach, we will also see it at work in a complex example that uses several of the design patterns mentioned in Chapters 6 and 14, as well as a number of practical code tactics. All the ideas proposed here are illustrative and can be used separately in a wide range of contexts.

The chapter is structured as follows:

15.1, Introduction briefly discusses some general characteristics of the implementation solutions proposed in this chapter.

15.2, Implementing object-oriented user interfaces introduces a simple framework for implementing object-oriented user interfaces (OOUI).

15.3, Some utility classes extends the simple framework introduced previously with some useful classes.

15.4, Configuration views discusses the specifics of configuration views.

15.5, Interacting with the user discusses some general-purpose implementation strategies for representing user interactions within the proposed OOUI framework effectively.

15.6, Managing user commands clarifies how user commands are represented in the proposed framework.

15.7, An example application describes the implementation ...