Rich Client Programming: Plugging into the NetBeans Platform

Chapter EightThe Window System

One of the most basic things any GUI application needs is the ability to display windows on the screen. Swing provides for this with classes such as JFrame. But this hardly solves the entire problem of windowing for Swing applications. In a reasonably complex, modern application, quite a bit of plumbing is needed beyond the simple ability to put a window on the screen. An application window will typically contain menus, toolbars, and other common components. Many applications have a concept of selection or context sensitivity—certain actions that are represented in menus and toolbars can only be enabled when certain types of things are “selected.” For example, a Copy menu item should only be enabled when there is ...