Introduction to Swing
Swing is the collection of user interface components for the Java programs. It is part of Java foundation classes that are referred to as JFC. In simple words, Swing is the graphical user interface toolkit that is used for developing the windows based java applications or programs. Swing is the successor of AWT which is known as Abstract window toolkit API for Java and AWT components are a mainly heavyweight.
The components are lightweight as compared to AWT components. It provides a good interface to the user for all the platforms. It is not specifically for one platform. The components are written in Java and platform independent as well. The Java foundation classes were first appeared in 1997 and then later on it is termed as Swing. To use the swing in java, javax. swing package needs to be used or import. It is also known as Java Swing
Features of Swing
The features of the Swing are as follows:
1. Platform Independent: It is platform independent, the swing components that are used to build the program are not platform specific. It can be used at any platform and anywhere.
2. Lightweight: Swing components are lightweight which helps in creating the UI lighter. Swings component allows it to plug into the operating system user interface framework that includes the mappings for screens or device and other user interactions like key press and mouse movements.
3. Plugging: It has a powerful component that can be extended to provide the support for the user interface that helps in good look and feel to the application. It refers to the highly modular-based architecture that allows it to plug into other customized implementations and framework for user interfaces. Its components are imported through a package called java.swing.
4. Manageable: It is easy to manage and configure. Its mechanism and composition pattern allows changing the settings at run time as well. The uniform changes can be provided to the user interface without doing any changes to application code.
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5. MVC: They mainly follows the concept of MVC that is Model View Controller. With the help of this, we can do the changes in one component without impacting or touching other components. It is known as loosely coupled architecture as well.
6. Customizable: Swing controls can be easily customized. It can be changed and the visual appearance of the swing component application is independent of its internal representation.
Examples of Swing
The component class is mainly used and there are some of the methods that are frequently used like adding a component in another component (add (Component a)), setting the size, layout, and visibility of components accordingly.
Below is the example:
import javax.swing.*;
public class Test extends JFrame {
public Test() {
super("Test");
setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
add(new JLabel("Test, Application!"));
pack();
setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(final String[] args) {
new Test();
}
}
Other examples to show the button:
import javax.swing.*;
public class Swing {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame f=new JFrame();//creating instance of JFrame
JButton b=new JButton("Submit Button");//creating instance of JButton
b.setBounds(120,90,90, 35);//x axis, y axis, width, height
f.add(b);//adding button in JFrame
f.setSize(400,500);//400 width and 500 height
f.setLayout(null);//using no layout managers
f.setVisible(true);//making the frame visible
}
}
Difference between Swing and AWT
The difference between Swing and AWT are as follow:
| Basic Comparison | SWING | AWT |
| Architecture | It follows the Model view controller architecture. | It doesn’t follow the model view architecture. |
| UI | It does support Pluggable look and feel for UI | It doesn’t support pluggable look and feel |
| Components | It has a lot of components to provide for UI. | It has fewer components as compared to Swing. |
| Independent | It is platform Independent. | It is platform dependent. |
| Weight | Its components are lightweight | Its components are heavyweight. |
| Speed | If components are more used, it can be slow. | Its speed would be normal if components are used more. |
Advantages
The advantages are as follows:
- The java swing mainly provides the built-in double buffering.
- The new components are built in swing and it provides the support for debugging as well.
- Swing components are mainly changed their appearance that looks and feel of the UI on the basis of the package that is being used.
- It mainly consumes fewer resources than AWT and that is why it is referred to as Lightweight.
- It provides other components like icons, decorative borders, and tooltips, etc.
- It mainly provides flexible UI because of following the concept of MVC design patterns.
- Swing provides additional functionality and other components for the replacement of AWT components.
- The components and applications can be used or run on any platform.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages are as follows:
- The components need version Java 1.2 and other separate jar files to consume.
- It can be slower than AWT.
- To develop the application in swing, the individual has to be very careful with programming
- Sometimes the components have not appeared as they should be.
Conclusion
It is the framework that is used for building the windows based applications for Java. It was developed to solve the issues that are in AWT. It provides more components to work and use the extensible components to develop the applications. There are many components in the swing package or library to perform and define the look and feel of the project or application.
It is referred to as the next generation GUI that has been developed for Java programs. Java Swing is a library of the GUI controls and classes are not platform dependent and lighter in weight as well because they don’t create the peer components. It mainly provides a consistent appearance or can say look and feel of the application across all the platforms.
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