Product Description

Need to build stand-alone Java applications? The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace will help you build them from the ground up. The book first runs down the Java GUI toolkit history. Then the book explains why SWT is superior and provides extensive examples of building applications with SWT. You'll come to understand the entire class hierarchy of SWT, and you'll learn to use all components in the toolkit with Java code. Furthermore, the book describes JFace, an additional abstraction layer built on SWT. Demonstrations of building JFace applications are also included and reinforced with thorough explanations and example code. These applications can be used as GUI plug-ins for Eclipse, and they're compatible with the new Eclipse 3.0 application development framework.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #368827 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 684 pages

About the Author
Rob Warner - Rob Warner graduated from Brigham Young University in December 1993 with a degree in English, then immediately took a job in the technology industry. Over the past four years, he has focused on designing and developing Java-based solutions, and currently uses Eclipse and its derivative, WebSphere Studio Application Developer, as his primary development environment. He has used SWT and JFace on several projects, including an executive information system for a religious organization, an Eclipse plug-in to generate Java source files from stored procedures, a recipe management program, and an XML Editor/Verifier.

Robert Harris - Robert Harris is a software engineer focused on distributed object computing. Since earning his Masters of Science from the University of Florida, he has been designing and implementing flexible, resilient solutions in the Telecommunications, Transportation, and Medical industries.

Customer Reviews

"The Definitive" ... couldn't agree more.
I have spent a couple of years of my university course coding Java, and when it came to the final year project I had one reservation about using Java - Swing and AWT don't look good, and perform really badly for any application of size.

I had heard about SWT and all that it offered, however I was still waiting for a book to be published. When this one became available I was sceptical about it claiming to be "The Definitive" when it was a first edition. How wrong was I...

The book gives a brief summary of all the Java GUIs and their strengths and weaknesses and then gets stuck into SWT. With lots of examples (code is available on the publishers website), a clear layout and an easy writing style it's very easy to pick up and read. You can either read from start to finish, or if you are looking to accomplish certain tasks (like creatingn a preferences dialog / menu bar / progress bar), you can dip into the appropriate section (my preferred method).

There is a downside to SWT. SWT is powerful, however it makes coding in the Model-View-Controller architecture difficult as well as some other tasks. Enter JFace...

JFace abstracts on top of (the already abstracted) SWT. What took 10 lines with SWT, only takes 2 with JFace. You can link your interface to your data and not have to worry about synchronising the two. You'll still need the SWT knowledge, but it will make coding less tedious and hopefully tidier.

You will need to know what you're doing with Java to understand this book - things like abstract classes, protected methods, interfaces etc should be familiar to you. If you've coded a GUI application before then this should be no problem. The standalone examples work, but you'll need some knowledge to integrate them into larger applications.

This book is not a reference, and does not pretend to be - all the API code can be found on Elipse's (the creators of SWT/Jface), website. It is a very well rounded introduction to everything concerned with creating a fully working application.

If any other publisher wants to know what the benchmark is for SWT/JFace books - it is this book. It is clear/concise and treats the reader as someone looking to improve the appearance/performance of their applications.

Worth it's weight in gold to an experienced Java developer who is looking to advance their knowledge.

Not definitive
Although this book makes a good reference manual, I didn't buy it for that reason. I bought it for tricks, tips and workarounds that cut development time and get around common problems. In effect, all the authors have done is strip-mined the SWT documentation and presented it in a slightly more digestible format, with a few more examples.
As for the rather complex GUI I'm putting together: this book didn't help at all.

Too much useless code
I found this book not useful... it only teachs the basic things. It is a collection of code without an useful explanation.