This book would have been better had it started off by stating the bare minimum one has to know and by sticking to the recurring theme of swing, namely MVC. A second section could have been added where they could have revisited the topics. Who has the time to wax along with the authors, anyway?

Also, it is not self contained as it assumes a knowledge of AWT. Consequently, the layout managers and other things that were originally a part of AWT do not get a fair treatment, if at all. Reading the AWT book is equally bad as it too is an exercise in weight lifting.

The authors seem to get carried away by their profundity. This book lacks an overall plan and it leaves nothing to imagination.

One approach would have been to convert it into a nutshell book and add an examples book. Alternatively, the book could have stated the principles and then carried on in a workbook fashion with the readers having to figure out most of the things. In this approach they could have let the reader delve into the code and synch up the workbook answers with a website.

Anyway you see it, by the time you get to the stage of looking up what you need you are usually ready to look into the source code and there is no need for this book.

In short, this book is an expensive door stop.


One of the best Swing books available   January 22, 2003
 4 out of 8 found this review helpful

For visual programming, Swing is a vast improvement over the AWT. Using Swing you can create virtually any user interface. At the same time, Swing is much more complex and contains far more components than the AWT. This book provides an in-depth introduction into the complexities of Swing. The authors start with a discussion of some of the features of Swing and the Model-View-Controller architecture which helps to make Swing so much more powerful than the AWT. The authors then discuss some of the simpler Swing objects (JLabel, JButton) leading us into a deeper understanding of the Swing architecture and preparing us for the more complex objects that follow. Each Swing class (JLabel, JInternalFrame, JDialog, JTree, and more) is explained in detail with numerous examples for each class. As the topics become more complex, the authors spend more time on the topic and provide more examples. The authors spend 6 chapters explaining the Swing text framework and make this complex topic almost simple to understand. The authors are not content to merely explain how to use the Swing classes but they spend time showing us how to create our own objects derived from the Swing classes. Java Swing is a huge book (more than 1,200 pages), especially by O'Reilly standards, but there are no pages wasted on a "quick reference". The authors have provided us with a well written, complete, easy to understand, and ultimately indispensable guide to Java Swing.


It's a big book, but it's a big topic   October 16, 2001
 9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Many computer books are too long, excessively padded with fat margins and code listings for irrelevent programs. Despite it's size, this is not one of them.

The authors have written a book for someone who wants to understand how Swing works. To this end, every element of the language is investigated, with significant emphasis being placed on understanding the Model-View-Controller pattern underlying the architecture.

The examples almost all work ( need to show() internal frames but that's the only bug I found ) and really help in clarifying the subject matter, and there's plenty of them.

Everything from labels to creating your own components / Look and Feel is covered.

Just maybe it might be worth reading Chapters 26 and 28 early on ( Look and Feel / Swing under the Hood ) as you have to wait for these before you find out how rendering works, and how the UIDelegate fits into the picture.

Overall though, a very good tutorial, and an excellent reference work.