Introduction

A graphical user interface (GUI) presents a user-friendly mechanism for interacting with an application. A GUI (pronounced "GOO-ee") gives an application a distinctive "look" and "feel." Providing different applications with consistent, intuitive user interface components allows users to be somewhat familiar with an application, so that they can learn it more quickly and use it more productively.

Look-and-Feel Observation 11.1

Consistent user interfaces enable a user to learn new applications faster.

As an example of a GUI, Fig. 11.1 contains an Internet Explorer Web-browser window with some of its GUI components labeled. At the top is a title bar that contains the window's title. Below that is a menu bar containing menus (File, Edit, View, etc.). Below the menu bar is a set of buttons that the user can click to perform tasks in Internet Explorer. Below the buttons is a combo box; the user can type into it the name of a Web site to visit or can click the down arrow at the right side of the box to select from a list of sites previously visited. The menus, buttons and combo box are part of Internet Explorer's GUI. They enable you to interact with Internet Explorer.

Figure 11.1. Internet Explorer window with GUI components.

GUIs are built from GUI components. These are sometimes called controls or widgetsshort for window gadgetsin other languages. A GUI component is an object with which the user interacts via the mouse, the keyboard or another form of input, such as voice recognition. In this chapter and Chapter 22, GUI Components: Part 2, you will learn about many of Java's GUI components. [Note: Several concepts covered in this chapter have already been covered in the optional GUI and Graphics Case Study of Chapters 310. So, some material will be repetitive if you read the case study. You do not need to read the case study to understand this chapter.]

Introduction to Computers, the Internet and the World Wide Web

Introduction to Java Applications

Introduction to Classes and Objects

Control Statements: Part I

Control Statements: Part 2

Methods: A Deeper Look

Arrays

Classes and Objects: A Deeper Look

Object-Oriented Programming: Inheritance

Object-Oriented Programming: Polymorphism

GUI Components: Part 1

Graphics and Java 2D™

Exception Handling

Files and Streams

Recursion

Searching and Sorting

Data Structures

Generics

Collections

Introduction to Java Applets

Multimedia: Applets and Applications

GUI Components: Part 2

Multithreading

Networking

Accessing Databases with JDBC

Servlets

JavaServer Pages (JSP)

Formatted Output

Strings, Characters and Regular Expressions

Appendix A. Operator Precedence Chart

Appendix B. ASCII Character Set

Appendix C. Keywords and Reserved Words

Appendix D. Primitive Types

Appendix E. (On CD) Number Systems

Appendix F. (On CD) Unicode®

Appendix G. Using the Java API Documentation

Appendix H. (On CD) Creating Documentation with javadoc

Appendix I. (On CD) Bit Manipulation

Appendix J. (On CD) ATM Case Study Code

Appendix K. (On CD) Labeled break and continue Statements

Appendix L. (On CD) UML 2: Additional Diagram Types

Appendix M. (On CD) Design Patterns

Appendix N. Using the Debugger

Inside Back Cover



Java(c) How to Program
Java How to Program (6th Edition) (How to Program (Deitel))
ISBN: 0131483986
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 615

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