swing in java

[kavee]

Java Swing is a GUI toolkit for Java. Swing is one part of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). Swing includes graphical user interface (GUI) widgets such as text boxes, buttons, split-panes, and tables.


Swing widgets provide more sophisticated GUI components than the earlier Abstract Window Toolkit. Since they are written in pure Java, they run the same on all platforms, unlike the AWT which is tied to the underlying platform's windowing system. Swing supports pluggable look and feel – not by using the native platform's facilities, but by roughly emulating them. This means you can get any supported look and feel on any platform. The disadvantage of lightweight components is possibly slower execution. The advantage is uniform behavior on all platforms.


History

The Internet Foundation Classes (IFC) were a graphics library for Java originally developed by Netscape Communications Corporation and first released on Dec 16, 1996.

On April 2, 1996, Sun Microsystems and Netscape Communications Corporation announced their intention to combine IFC with other technologies to form the Java Foundation Classes. In addition to the components originally provided by IFC, Swing introduced a mechanism that allowed the look and feel of every component in an application to be altered without making substantial changes to the application code. The introduction of support for a pluggable look and feel allowed Swing components to emulate the appearance of native components while still retaining the benefits of platform independence. This feature also makes it easy to have an individual application's appearance look very different from other native programs.


Originally distributed as a separately downloadable library, Swing has been included as part of the Java Standard Edition since release 1.2. The Swing classes are contained in the javax.swing package hierarchy.


Example

The following is a Hello World program using Swing.

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;

public final class HelloWorld extends JFrame {
private HelloWorld() {
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
getContentPane().add(new JLabel("Hello, World!"));
pack();
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
new HelloWorld().setVisible(true);
}
}