What's New in This Edition? This second edition covers the latest developments in the Java 2 Standard Edition SDK 1.3 and 1.4. We've tried to highlight the changes from 1.2 in case you have to work with older releases for compatibility or political reasons. For brevity's sake, we refer to Java versions by their SDK version number, describing this or that feature as having been introduced in SDK 1.3 or 1.4. Earlier versions were called Java Development Kits, so in those cases we refer to JDK 1.1 or 1.2. This new edition incorporated your feedback from the first edition! The first edition was too heavy on the documentation side for many readers. The Javadoc for the Swing packages continues to improve, and more and more people are familiar with the patterns of Java classes and methods. With those two facts in mind, we try to focus on the parts of the API that are interesting and useful rather than just including them because they exist. We added many new examples and improved the existing examples. This book is a true and thorough revision of the first edition, not a mere update. As a quick reference to some of the changes you'll find in the 1.3 and 1.4 releases of the SDK, Table P-1 and Table P-2 list any significant changes to components and briefly describe those changes. We detail these changes throughout the book as we discuss the particular components. Table P-1. Swing changes in the Java 2 SDK 1.3 | Component or feature | In chapter | Description of changes or additions | | JTree | Chapter 17 | Several new properties were added, including the click count to start editing and the selection path. | | JTable | Chapter 15 | Improved general performance and cell rendering. AbstractCellEditor is now the parent class of the DefaultCellEditor used by tables. | | JSplitPane | Chapter 11 | A new resizeWeight property was added, and the dividerLocationProperty is now bound. | | JFileChooser | Chapter 12 | You can now remove the Ok and Cancel buttons. A new property, acceptAllFileFilterUsed, was added. | | JCheckBox | Chapter 5 | Added new borderPaintedFlat property. | | DefaultButtonModel | Chapter 5 | Added new getGroup( ) method. | | JInternalFrame | Chapter 9 | Several fixes and newly public classes and methods. Internal frames are now invisible by default, and the default close operation is now DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE. | | JTabbedPane | Chapter 11 | Added new toolTipTextAt indexed property. | | Text components | Chapter 19-Chapter 23 | Several fixes applied. Several improvements in general HTML support via the HTMLEditorKit and related classes. (XHTML documents are still not supported.) | | JViewport | Chapter 11 | New scrollMode property added. | | JComponent | Chapter 3 | New print methods added: printComponent( ), printBorder( ), printChildren( ). | | InputVerifier | Chapter 20 | New class added. | | Keyboard binding | Chapter 3, Appendix B | New keyboard binding mechanism added. New classes, InputMap and ActionMap, replace Keymap functionality. | | Borders | Chapter 13 | New LineBorder constructor to support rounded corners added. | | Actions | Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 14 | AbstractAction class was updated, and new constructors for JCheckBox, JRadioButton, JToggleButton, JMenu, JMenuItem, JCheckBoxMenuItem, and JRadioButtonMenuItem that use Action were added. | | JToolBar | Chapter 14 | Support for titling undocked toolbars added. | | JPopupMenu | Chapter 14 | Added new popupTrigger boolean property. | | JFrame | Chapter 11 | Added new EXIT_ON_CLOSE constant for use with the defaultCloseOperation property. | | ListenerList | Chapter 27 | Added getListeners( ) method to several model classes, including AbstractDocument, AbstractTableModel, AbstractListModel, DefaultButtonModel, DefaultTreeModel, and DefaultListSelectionModel. | Table P-2. Swing changes in the Java 2 SDK 1.4 | Component or feature | In chapter | Description of changes or additions | | JProgressBar | Chapter 6 | Added support for indeterminate progress bars. | | JSpinner | Chapter 7 | Added new spinner class. | | JFormattedTextField | Chapter 20 | Added new formatted text field class that validates user input. | | Focus | Chapter 3, Chapter 28 | A new focus model and methodology was introduced. Several of the old-style focus methods and classes were deprecated as of 1.4.1. | | Drag and Drop | Chapter 24 | New architecture introduced, and dragEnabled and transferHandler properties added to several components. | | Box | Chapter 11 | Now descends from JComponent. | | JButton | Chapter 5 | More control over mnemonic underline location granted. | | JComboBox | Chapter 7 | Added PopupMenuListener and support for cell size prototyping. | | JFileChooser | Chapter 12 | Added support for modifying the properties of the Open button (such as its text and tooltip). Also added support for selecting multiple files. (The multiple file selection mode was introduced in the 1.2 release but was not implemented until 1.4.) | | JInternalFrame | Chapter 9 | Long titles are now truncated, and the title bar is rendered with a gradient. | | Text components | Chapter 19-Chapter 23 | Tooltip support was improved. HTML support, including accessibility in documents, was improved (XHTML is still not supported). New replace( ) method added to AbstractDocument. | | JOptionPane | Chapter 10 | New input dialog methods added. | | JPopupMenu | Chapter 14 | Now properly supports key bindings. | | JTabbedPane | Chapter 11 | Introduced scrollable tabs for panes with a large number of tabs. Mnemonic support for accessing tabs was also added. | | JTree | Chapter 17 | Null roots are now allowed, and first-letter keyboard navigation was added. | | JList | Chapter 7 | Items can now be arranged horizontally, and first-letter keyboard navigation was added. | | SwingConstants | Chapter 27 | New constants, NEXT and PREVIOUS, were added. | | SwingUtilities | Chapter 27 | New methods added, including calculateInnerArea( ) and applyComponentOrientation( ) | | LookAndFeel | Chapter 3, Chapter 26, Appendix B | General support for auditory cues was added. Access to Windows desktop properties was also added. | | JComponent | Chapter 3 | requestFocus( ) and requestFocusInWindow( ) methods are now public. | | MouseWheelEventMouseWheelListener | Chapter 11 | New event and listener for mouse wheels added. | | JRootPane | Chapter 10 | Look-and-feel can now supply window decoration. | | JScrollBar | Chapter 6 | Now properly overrides setUI( ). | | JScrollPane | Chapter 11 | Now supports mouse wheel events. (This support can be turned off.) | | RepaintManager | Chapter 28 | New method to return a VolatileImage. | | SpringLayout | Chapter 11 | New class (and supporting classes) added. | |
