Java Swing, 2nd Edition

Acknowledgments

We’re particularly indebted to our technical reviewers for this second edition: Christian Hessler, John Pyeatt, Maciek Smuga-Otto, and Dave Wood.

Marc Loy

I’ll start off the mutual admiration society by thanking my cohorts Jim and Brian. They came to the table after we lost Dave and Bob (from the first edition) to other books, and well, life in general. This update would not have been possible without them. Our editor Deb Cameron has the patience and diligence of some very patient and diligent god. I continue to be amazed by the support and insight I receive from my colleagues Tom Berry, Damian Moshak, and Brooks Graham. Gratitude for the inspiration to keep writing (even if it is technical) goes to Amy Hammond, my sister and confidante. A special thanks to Kathy Godeken for an early push in the right direction. Words are not enough to thank my partner Ron, so I’ll not waste the space.

Brian Cole

Thanks to my family for putting up with me as an author. This goes tenfold for my partner, Beth, for that and more. Thanks to Deb, who was very understanding about deadlines, and especially to Marc and Jim, who were always willing to lend a hand despite deadlines of their own. Thanks to my employers and coworkers, who were willing to accommodate my schedule. Finally, thanks to the anonymous programmer who discovered that running java with -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true fixes the appalling 1.3 drawing problems common on Win32 systems equipped with some popular types of video cards. You saved me a lot of time.

James Elliott

Any list of thanks has to start with my parents for fostering my interest in computing even when we were living in countries that made that a major challenge, and with my partner Joe for putting up with it today when it has flowered into a major obsession. I’d also like to acknowledge my Madison employer, Berbee, for giving me an opportunity to delve deeply into Java and build skills as an architect of reusable APIs; for letting me stay clear of the proprietary, platform-specific tar pit that is engulfing so much of the programming world; for surrounding me with such incredible colleagues; and for being supportive when I wanted to help with this book. Of course, I have Marc to thank for getting me involved in this crazy adventure in the first place, and Deb for helping make sense of it.

I wanted to be sure this edition gave good advice about how to work with Swing on Mac OS X, Apple’s excellent, Unix-based environment for Java development, so I asked for some help. Lee Ann Rucker (who should also be thanked for her heroic work of single-handedly implementing the new Mac OS Look-and-Feel while on loan from Sun to Apple) shared some great ideas and approaches to writing solid, cross-platform Java applications, including the MacMetrics theme described in Chapter 26. Count me among the many people wishing Sun or Apple would put her back on the Mac Java team! Eric Albert, another frequent source of insight on Apple’s Java-Dev mailing list, gave me more suggestions and pointed me to his excellent chapter in Early Adopter Mac OS X Java (Wrox Press). Finally, Matt Drance at Apple’s Developer Technical Support sent me an early (and helpful) version of his technical note on how to make Java applications as Mac-friendly as possible. There are many others to whom I’m indebted, but I’ve already used more than my fair share of space, so the rest of you know who you are!

We all want to thank the many members of O’Reilly’s production department, who put in lots of work under a tight schedule.