Swing Hacks

Preface

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How to Use This Book

You can read this book from cover to cover if you like, but each hack stands

on its own, so feel free to browse and jump to the different sections that

interest you most. If there’s a prerequisite you need to know about, a cross-

reference will guide you to the right hack. The code all works (we tried it)

but in case you can’t get a hack to work, let us know at the book’s web site:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/swinghks. You can also download the book’s

code online, or contribute your own tips and tricks. If we collect enough

new material, and this book sells more than 10 copies, then the publishers

might let us make Swing Hacks 2: The Endless Repaint.

With few exceptions, the hacks in this book were written for Java 2 Stan-

dard Edition (J2SE), version 1.4, which you can get from http://java.sun.com/

j2se/. A few hacks depend on open source packages, which are freely down-

loadable from their home pages, as described in the hack itself. The only

exceptions are two hacks that use QuickTime for Java—this is freely avail-

able from Apple (and installed by default on Mac OS X), but it is propri-

etary and available for Mac and Windows only.

Because this is a book about Swing, the program listings will be using the

classes from the Swing and AWT packages, so we’ve skipped

import javax.

swing.*

and import java.awt.* statements for space. You can also assume

that any listing involving event handling will

import java.awt.event.* and

probably import

javax.swing.event.* as well. Java2D hacks implicitly

import java.awt.image.*. In short, we’ll include import statements only

when a hack involves non-core, and/or non-obvious imports, like the hacks

that use JDBC, Lucene, Velocity, QuickTime for Java, etc.

How This Book Is Organized

The book is divided into several chapters, organized by subject:

Chapter 1, Basic JComponents

Here you’ll find simple hacks for the basic components like labels, but-

tons, and text fields. This chapter contains a lot of bang for the buck,

and it illustrates some of the techniques that we will explore more fully

later on. From fancy JLabels to translucent menus, this is a great place

to start.

Chapter 2, Lists and Combos

This chapter features complicated Swing components that are used

everywhere. Bend them to your will! Make them look good with poly-

morphic renderers and animated selections. Make them perform well

with filtering and Collections support.

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Preface

Chapter 3, Tables and Trees

This chapter revelas the secrets of these mystic components—from

Excel exporting to proper JTree drop targets. Make the JTree and

JTable dance.

Chapter 4, File Choosers

One of Swing’s most maligned components, the JFileChooser, actually

has a lot of power hiding inside some murky APIs. This chapter will let

you use custom icons, detect Windows shortcuts, and even navigate ZIP

files.

Chapter 5, Windows, Dialogs, and Frames

This is where the fun begins. Every application needs a container, so

why not make it pretty and powerful? Make your windows drag and

snap. Build custom windows like the earthquake login and spin open

dialog. You can even save your window settings automatically with

almost no code changes.

Chapter 6, Transparent and Animated Windows

If you went through the previous chapter and still want more, then this

chapter is for you. We push windows to the limit with transparency,

animations, slide-in OS X stylesheets, and some of the coolest special

effects you’ve ever seen.

Chapter 7, Text

Text components seem boring, but there’s a lot of power hiding in

there. This chapter will show you how to do regular expression search-

ing, dot completion, backward text, and even three different ways to

give your application the bright sheen of anti-aliasing.

Chapter 8, Rendering

This chapter has the meat of the graphics hacks. Custom fonts, a magni-

fying glass, vector buttons, and even some work with Java3D. We’ve got

some great things to make your application pop.

Chapter 9, Drag-and-Drop

When your users want two pieces of software to work together the first

thing they want to do is drag-and-drop data from their other programs

to yours. This chapter covers how to do robust and attractive drag-and-

drop entirely within Java.

Chapter 10, Audio

What would be a cool modern application without some media sup-

port? This chapter covers four different ways to play sound, how to dis-

play waveforms, and how to embed MP3 support in your own

programs.