Before You Start

If you haven't written and run programs using the Java platform, then please close this book and go to the "Getting Started" trail of The Java Tutorial . That trail will introduce the Java programming language and platform and lead you through writing and running a basic application and applet. The trail is included on this book's CD at: JavaTutorial/getStarted/index.html .

This book is divided into two distinct parts . The first six chapters describe general Swing concepts and introduce you to progressively more difficult code examples. The last four chapters are composed of how-to reference sections.

Our goal was to make it easy to skip around this book, choosing exactly which sections you want to read. That's why the how-to sections in the reference chapters are self-contained and tabbed. The Appendix contains several handy troubleshooting guides. We also provide the following navigational aids:

• The contents (page v) lists all of the chapters in this book, and the major sections within them.

• The beginning of each chapter describes what you can expect to learn and has its own table of contents that lists the sections within it.

• Within each chapter, you can expect to find links to related information whenever appropriate.

• The Index (page 763) is a traditional book index.

At the back of this book, The Java Tutorial CD description lists the contents of the CD-ROM. In particular, it includes The Java Tutorial in HTML and all of the source code for the examples in this book. The CD also includes most of the resources referenced in this book, such as the API documentation and the online magazine ” The Swing Connection .

It's easy to translate the URLs in the book to their locations on the CD-ROM; for example, the URL for JApplet API documentation is:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/javax/swing/JApplet.html

It can be found on the CD at:

Docs/j2sdk14-api/docs/api/javax/swing/JApplet.html

If you need some information that's not in this book or in the API documentation, we recommend that you consult these resources:

• The JavaDesktop community Web site, especially its articles and forums at: http://javadesktop.org/ and http://javadesktop.org/forums/.

• The online version of The Java Tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html.

In addition, you can find other resources listed on the following page:

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/information/resources.html