Java How to Program, 9/e

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 A graphical user interface (GUI) presents a user-
friendly mechanism for interacting with an application.
◦ Pronounced “GOO-ee”
◦ Gives an application a distinctive “look” and “feel.”
◦ Learn new applications more quickly and use them more
productively.

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 Built from GUI components.
◦ Sometimes called controls or widgets—short for window
gadgets.
 User interacts via the mouse, the keyboard or another
form of input, such as voice recognition.
 IDEs
◦ Provide GUI design tools to specify a component’s exact size
and location in a visual manner by using the mouse.
◦ Generates the GUI code for you.
◦ Greatly simplifies creating GUIs, but each IDE has different
capabilities and generates different code.

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 Most applications use windows or dialog boxes (also called
dialogs) to interact with the user.

 JOptionPane (package javax.swing) provides

prebuilt dialog boxes for input and output
◦ Displayed via static JOptionPane methods.

 Figure 14.2 uses two input dialogs to obtain integers from

the user and a message dialog to display the sum of the
integers the user enters.

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 JOptionPane static method showInputDialog
displays an input dialog, using the method’s String argument
as a prompt.

◦ JOptionPane dialog are dialog—the user cannot interact with the rest
of the application while dialog is displayed.

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 Converting Strings to int Values
◦ Integer class’s static method parseInt converts its String argument to
an int value.

 Message Dialogs
◦ JOptionPane static method showMessageDialog displays a message
dialog.
◦ The first argument helps determine where to position the dialog.
 If null, the dialog box is displayed at the center of your screen.

◦ The second argument is the message to display.

◦ The third argument is the String that should appear in the title bar at the top of the
dialog.
◦ The fourth argument is the type of message dialog to display.
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 Swing GUI components located in package
javax.swing.

 Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) in package java.awt is

another set of GUI components in Java.

◦ Java application with AWT GUI  the application’s GUI components

display differently on each platform.

 The appearance and the way in which the user interacts with the
application are known as that application’s look-and-feel.

 Swing GUI components allow you to specify a uniform look-

and-feel for your application across all platforms.
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 Most Swing components are not tied to actual GUI components
of the underlying platform.
◦ Known as lightweight components.

 AWT components are tied to the local platform and are called
heavyweight components, because they rely on the local
platform’s windowing system to determine their functionality
and their look-and-feel.

 Several Swing components are heavyweight components.

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 Class Component (package java.awt) declares
many of the attributes and behaviors common to the
GUI components in packages java.awt and
javax.swing.

 Most GUI components extend class Component

directly or indirectly.

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 Class Container (package java.awt) is a subclass of
Component.
 Components are attached to Containers so that they can be
organized and displayed on the screen.
 Any object that is a Container can be used to organize other
Components in a GUI.
 Because a Container is a Component, you can place
Containers in other Containers to help organize a GUI.

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 Class JComponent (package javax.swing) is a
subclass of Container.
 JComponent is the superclass of all lightweight Swing
components, all of which are also Containers.

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 Some common lightweight component features supported
by JComponent include:
 pluggable look-and-feel

 Shortcut keys (called mnemonics)

 Common event-handling capabilities for components that initiate

the same actions in an application.

 tool tips

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 Most windows that can contain Swing GUI components are
instances of class JFrame or a subclass of JFrame.
 JFrame is an indirect subclass of class java.awt.Window
 Provides the basic attributes and behaviors of a window
◦ a title bar at the top
◦ buttons to minimize, maximize and close the window

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 A label is created with class JLabel—a subclass of
JComponent.
◦ Displays read-only text, an image, or both text and an image.

 JFrame’s constructor uses its String argument as the

text in the window’s title bar.
 Must attach each GUI component to a container, such as a
JFrame.
 You typically must decide where to position each GUI
component.
◦ Known as specifying the layout of the GUI components.
◦ Java provides several layout managers that can help you position
components.
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 FlowLayout
◦ GUI components are placed on a container from left to right in the
order in which the program attaches them to the container.
◦ When there is no more room to fit components left to right,
components continue to display left to right on the next line.

 Method setLayout is inherited from class Container.

◦ argument must be an object of a class that implements the
LayoutManager interface (e.g., FlowLayout).

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 Method setToolTipText specifies the tool tip that is
displayed when the user positions the mouse cursor over a
JComponent (such as a JLabel).
 You attach a component to a container using the add
method, which is inherited indirectly from class
Container.

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 An icon is normally specified with an Icon argument to a
constructor or to the component’s setIcon method.

 An Icon is an object of any class that implements interface

Icon (package javax.swing).

 ImageIcon (package javax.swing) supports several image

formats, including Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Portable
Network Graphics (PNG) and Joint Photographic Experts Group
(JPEG).

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 A JLabel can display an Icon.
 JLabel constructor can receive text and an Icon.
◦ The last constructor argument indicates the justification of the label’s
contents.
◦ Interface SwingConstants (package javax.swing) declares a set
of common integer constants (such as SwingConstants.LEFT) that
are used with many Swing components.
◦ By default, the text appears to the right of the image when a label
contains both text and an image.

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 Class JLabel provides methods to change a label’s appearance
after it has been instantiated.
 Method setText sets the text displayed on the label.
 Method getText retrieves  the current text displayed on a label.
 Method setIcon specifies the Icon to display on a label.
 Method getIcon retrieves  the current Icon displayed on a
label.
 Methods setHorizontalTextPosition and
setVerticalTextPosition specify the text position in the
label.

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 By default, closing a window simply hides the window.
 Calling method setDefaultCloseOperation (inherited
from class JFrame) with the argument
JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE indicates that the program should
terminate when the window is closed by the user.
 Method setSize specifies the width and height of the window
in pixels.
 Method setVisible with the argument true displays the
window on the screen.
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 GUIs are event driven.
 When the user interacts with a GUI component, the
interaction—known as an event—drives the program to
perform a task.
 The code that performs a task in response to an event is
called an event handler, and the overall process of
responding to events is known as event handling.

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 JTextFields and JPasswordFields (package
javax.swing).
 JTextField extends class JTextComponent (package
javax.swing.text), which provides many features common
to Swing’s text-based components.
 Class JPasswordField extends JTextField and adds
methods that are specific to processing passwords.
 JPasswordField shows that characters are being typed as the
user enters them, but hides the actual characters with an echo
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