The JavaTM Tutorial
Previous Page Lesson Contents Next Page Start of Tutorial > Start of Trail Search
Feedback Form
Examples Index

Trail: Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing

Lesson: User Interfaces that Swing: A Quick Start Guide

This lesson is a quick start guide to using Swing components to build user interfaces. This lesson is built around several progressively complicated examples.
Note: This material is covered in depth in the full Swing trail: Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail). This lesson is designed for readers who want to learn the basics quickly by examining some simple examples.

We cover many standard graphical user interface (GUI) components that the JavaTM 2 platform provides, such as buttons, labels, and text areas. The handling of events is also discussed, as are layout management and accessibility.

Note: You can download all the examples (including images) used in this trail from the Example Index.
Overview of the Swing API(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
This page gives a quick overview of the history of the Swing package and how to compile and run Swing programs.

Your First Swing Program(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
This small example has all the code that every Swing application must have.

Example Two: SwingApplication(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
This section takes you through the code for a small Swing application. The topics covered include: look and feel, setting up buttons and labels, handling events, and adding borders.

Example Three: CelsiusConverter(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
The third example, a program that converts a given temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit, illustrates how to add HTML and icons to components.

Example Four: LunarPhases(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
The fourth example covers how to set up multiple panels, compound borders, combo boxes, and how to load multiple images.

Example Five: VoteDialog(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
You can vote for your favorite political candidate in the final example, VoteDialog. This application illustrates the use of radio buttons and dialogs.

Layout Management(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
This section discusses how to position the components in a container.

Threads and Swing(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
Thread issues are discussed in this section, including the "Single-Thread Rule."

Summary(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
A summary of important concepts covered in this section.

Questions and Exercises(in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail)
Try these questions and exercises to test what you've learned in this lesson.


Previous Page Lesson Contents Next Page Start of Tutorial > Start of Trail Search
Feedback Form
Examples Index

Copyright 1995-2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.