History of GUI in Java

Java’s original GUI library was the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT). Swing (Chapters 12 and 22) was added to the platform in Java SE 1.2. Since then, Swing has remained the primary Java GUI technology. Swing is now in maintenance mode—Oracle has stopped development and will provide only bug fixes going forward; however, it will remain part of Java and is still widely used.

Java’s GUI, graphics and multimedia API of the future is JavaFX. Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle in 2010) announced JavaFX in 2007 as a competitor to Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. JavaFX 1.0 was released in 2008. Prior to version 2.0, developers used JavaFX Script—which was similar to JavaScript—to write JavaFX apps. The JavaFX Script source ...

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