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Swing Hacks: Tips and Tools for Killer GUIs (Hacks)
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by Joshua Marinacci and Chris Adamson
Sales Rank: 133354
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List Price: $29.95
$19.77
At Amazon
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Paperback: 542 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. June 30, 2005
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596009070
ISBN-13: 978-0596009076
Product Dimensions:
9 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Product Description
"Swing Hacks" helps Java developers move beyond the basics of Swing, the graphical user interface (GUI) standard since Java 2. If you're a Java developer looking to build enterprise applications with a first-class look and feel, Swing is definitely one skill you need to master. This latest title from O'Reilly is a reference to the cool stuff in Swing. It's about the interesting things you learn over the years--creative, original, even weird hacks--the things that make you say, "I didn't know you could even do that with Swing!"
"Swing Hacks" will show you how to extend Swing's rich component set in advanced and sometimes non-obvious ways. The book touches upon the entire Swing gamut-tables, trees, sliders, spinners, progress bars, internal frames, and text components. Detail is also provided on JTable/JTree, threaded component models, and translucent windows. You'll learn how to filter lists, power-up trees and tables, and add drag-and-drop support.
"Swing Hacks" will show you how to do fun things that will directly enhance your own applications. Some are visual enhancements to make your software look better. Some are functional improvements to make your software do something it couldn't do before. Some are even just plain silly, in print only to prove it could be done. The book will also give you give you a small glimpse of the applications coming in the future. New technology is streaming into the Java community at a blistering rate, and it gives application developers a whole new set of blocks to play with.
With its profusion of tips and tricks, "Swing Hacks" isn't just for the developer who wants to build a better user interface. It's also ideally suited for client-sideJava developers who want to deliver polished applications, enthusiasts who want to push Java client application boundaries, and coders who want to bring powerful techniques to their own applications.
Whatever your programming needs, "Swing Hacks" is packed with programming lessons that increase your competency with interface-building tools.
About The Author
Joshua Marinacci is the author of "The Java Sketchbook" column for java.net, covering topics in Java client-side and web development. A Java programmer since 1995, he's currently working on enterprise document management software. Joshua earned his BS from Georgia Tech in 1997, and has been a professional programmer for over a decade.
Joshua Marinacci first tried Java in 1995 at the request of his favorite TA and never looked back. He has spent the last ten years writing Java user interfaces for wireless, web, and desktop platforms. After tiring of web programming with several large companies in the Atlanta area he joined Sun to work on Java user interfaces full-time, first on the Swing team and now with NetBeans. Joshua recently co-authored O'Reilly's Swing Hacks with Chris Adamson. He also contributes to SwingLabs and writes regularly for Java.net. Joshua holds a BS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and recently moved to Eugene, Oregon to be with his new wife.
Customer Reviews & Comments
I'm surprised that it's taken this many years for a book like this to make it to market. There are good Swing books available, but they rarely go beyond the basics. As soon as I heard about this one, I pre-ordered and began waiting. It essentially consists of 99 power 'tricks' for creating WOW effects in your user interfaces. Some are eye candy that you'd probably never put in a production application, but I'd say 80%+ could be applied to every day app's. I'll be spending many hours pouring over the details of each hack to gain the deep insight offered by this book. This book is going to allow me to reach the next level of Swing polish. I find it hard to believe that most people that consider themselves Swing developers wouldn't gain a lot from reading this book. Run, don't walk, and get this book. There are a few minor disappointments, but I emphasis minor. The production quality seems a bit rushed as there was quite a few obvious errors in the preface alone, although not of a technical nature. Perhaps only the preface escaped any editing oversight, since the remainder of the book had nothing that jumped out at me. As usual today, the examples are all available for download from OReilly's website. But I wonder why they didn't take the extra step of providing runnable versions of each hack. You have to compile each one - a minor annoyance. When browsing the book it would have been cool to be able to just double-click an associated jar file to see the effect in action. The author clearly uses a Macintosh, since all (perhaps I missed one or two) the screen shots are from a Mac, and some of the Hacks relate to duplicating Mac OS features. Seeing that the majority of Swing applications are probably deployed on Windows machines, a bit more emphasis on Windows would have been more appropriate. And the screen shots could have used a cross-platform look-and-feel instead of the Mac OS. In short summary, the good, the bad, and the ugly... The Good: Insanely great tricks for getting the most out of Swing. The Bad: Perhaps too much Macintosh focus and not enough Windows (XP). The Ugly: Probably a bit rushed out the door since there are some glaring production mistakes, like chapter summaries without the chapter names or numbers, etc.
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Swing Hacks: Tips and Tools for Killer GUIs (Hacks)
List Price: $29.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.77
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