Help is available for each task.
Task 1
Download the latest version of the Swing early access release from
Sun.
Task 2
Installation requires you to uncompress/untar or unzip the file acquired.
Do not extract the class files from the *.jar files that are within
the Swing download.
Task 3
Before running the demonstration, take a look at the online Swing
documentation, and bookmark it. Along with information about Swing,
the online JavaDoc API material is here. You need to open and bookmark
the file:
SwingInstallationDirectory/doc/api/packages.html .
After bookmarking the page, you can browse through the documentation
of the API material.
Follow the trail, based upon which browser you are using:
- Internet Explorer 3.0/4.0
- Select File -> New Window to open up a second browser window
- In second window, select File -> Open -> Browse, enter the name
of the Swing installation parent directory,
Enter,
swing-1.1, Enter, doc, Enter,
api, Enter, packages.html, Enter,
and select OK.
- Select Favorites -> Add to Favorites to bookmark this page.
- Netscape Navigator 2.0/3.0
- Select File -> New Web Browser to open up a second browser window
- Select File -> Open File in Browser, enter the name of the Swing
installation parent directory,
Enter, swing-1.1,
Enter, doc, Enter,
api, Enter,
packages.html, Enter, and select OK.
- Select Bookmark -> Add Bookmark.
- Netscape Navigator 4.0 (Communicator)
- Select File -> New -> Navigator Window to open up a second browser
window
- Select File -> Open Page -> Choose File, enter the name of the Swing
installation parent directory,
Enter, swing-1.1,
Enter, doc, Enter,
api, Enter,
packages.html, Enter, and select Open.
- Select Communicator -> Bookmarks -> Add Bookmark.
If the Swing installation directory isn't swing-1.1, replace with
the appropriate location.
If you are using the Swing classes with Java® 2, be sure to bookmark the
standard Java® 2 platform libraries.
Task 4
To run the demonstration, from a command shell with JDK 1.1.x, you need to
setup some environment variables:
For Solaris:
setenv JDKHOME JDKInsallationDirectory
cd SwingInstallationDirectory
cd examples
cd SwingSet
runnit
For Windows 95/NT:
This assumes the JDK is installed in c:\jdk1.1.7 and Swing is located
in c:\swing-1.1.
set JDKHOME=C:\jdk1.1.7
set CLASSPATH=%JDKHOME%\lib\classes.zip
set PATH=%JDKHOME%\bin;%PATH%
set SWINGHOME=C:\swing-1.1
cd C:\swing-1.1
cd examples
cd SwingSet
runnit
For Java® 2 users:
The SwingSet demo comes with Java® 2 platform. As long as you are
setup to run the runtime environment, you just need to start the demo.
cd JDKInsallationDirectory
cd demo
cd jfc
cd SwingSet
java SwingSet
This brings up the initial SwingSet demonstration screen.
This magercise does not create a program, but executes Swing's
SwingSet demo. When first started, it will look something like:
Note: Clicking on the image will bring-up a larger
version of the image.
|
You may find it helpful to place the commands in a shell script (UNIX) or
batch file (Windows).
Also, the README.txt file in the Swing installation directory
contains additional setup information.
Task 5
To demonstrate some of the familiar, select the Buttons tab. This shows
three of the button types supported by Swing: Text Buttons, Image Buttons,
and Rollover Image Buttons.
Notice that the text buttons have an accelerator key. If you select
ALT-accelerator key, the button becomes activated. This is part of
the added keyboard control support in Swing.
For the image buttons, they exist in Swing. If you select the
different image buttons, you'll notice that the second and third buttons
show a green arrow image when depressed, while the first doesn't. This
demonstrates some of the different behavior you can provide. Also, if you
select the Enabled toggled on the right, so that it is unchecked, this
demonstrates the different disabled features you can use.
For the rollover image buttons: When you move the mouse over each button
the image changes. Also, if you change the Text Position by moving the
ball around on the upper right, you can move the text relative to the
image location. The Content Alignment tells the image/text where to go
when additional space is available, so select the 10 toggle, and then
relocate the content. (This is more discernable with components other
than buttons).
The appropriate accelerator key for shortcuts is platform specific.
Task 6
For the RadioButtons, and Checkboxes tabs: The key differences between
AWT and Swing is there is no CheckboxGroup object. The components
are separate objects. There is however a ButtonGroup object to
group radio buttons together. Another difference between AWT and Swing is
you can use an image as the toggle object, instead of a checkbox. As the
screens show, this can create some interesting interfaces. The ToggleButtons
tab shows a third kind of toggle control.
For the Labels tab: The only things new there is a label can have an image
on it and a keyboard accelerator for a label can move the input focus to an
associated component.
Task 7
Some of the new components introduced by Swing can be found under the Borders,
ComboBox, TableView, BorderedPane, SplitPane and ToolTips tabs. The cow shown
under the ToolTips tab acts like an image map, where certain areas of the cow
show different tool tips. Rest your mouse and see the different ones. Be sure
to find the area that has "Got Milk?" as its tool tip.
Task 8
Selecting the Internal Frame tab shows off Swing's Dialog-like object. Here,
when you drag the window around, you'll quickly notice it will not go outside
the demo's area. Also, you can create other frames by selecting the Make
button. If you change the Layer input you'll also notice the support for
z-ordering, or layering of objects.
Before leaving this tab, select another Look & Feel from the Options
menu. Notice how this changes the appearance of the different components.
This is Swing's Pluggable Look & Feel capabilities. Basically, at
run-time, you can permit users to change the appearance of the interface
from the default Metal-style interface to a Windows-95 interface, to a
Motif interface, or any custom interface. Or, you can just enable a different
Look & Feel all the time.
You can only use the Windows-style Look &
Feel on Windows platforms.
Task 9
The ListBox tab shows off some new capabilities of lists. The most obvious
addition here is the ability to have images in the list. Selecting an item
also demonstrates that you can change what is shown when an item becomes
selected.
Find out how much a cola, cake, fruit pop, watermelon, and a radish cost,
combined.
$6.00
Task 10
Under the Menus & ToolBars tab you'll find the new ToolBar component,
and notice that menus can now have images along with text for menu items,
even on the menu bar. While looking at the menus, find the names of three
cats. While most toolbars are draggable by default, this one isn't.
Ridley, Quigley, and Kizmet.
Task 11
The last three tabs we'll look at are TreeView, ProgressBar, and HTML Text.
TreeView demonstrates an hierarchical viewer that is now a standard component.
For the Progress Bar, if you select the Start Loading Text button, you'll
notice its behavior, as it loads in a file from disk. With the HTML Text
object, it supports HTML 3.2 display like images, text, and hot links.
Task 12
At your leisure, stop by the other tabs. You'll get to create the components
in the remaining magercises. So, just get a feel for what's out there now.
When you're done, select File then Exit to close the demonstration.
Be sure to read the README.txt file in the SwingSet directory for
help using the example.
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MageLang Institute.
All Rights Reserved.
