Java Swing, Second Edition (ISBN 0596004087) Book Reviews 1-13 Sorted By Most Recent, at VeryWellSaid.com

Very Informative -- A desktop quick reference

This book does a very good job of consolidating all of the information regarding Swing that can be found on the internet and putting it into one book. Just be sure to note that it is HUGE.

It contains many interesting code examples and pictures. It takes every JObject (such as JLabel, JFrame, JTable) and compares what they would look like among different look and feels.

I highly reccomend it for any Java desktop programmer.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-11-30 06:25:38 EST)

01-21-06

8\10

Encyclopedic tome on Swing is a great reference

This extremely hefty book on Swing has just about everything in it. However, it is intended to be a reference on Swing, not a tutorial. The problem with the Java Swing API is that it is so large and unwieldy itself that it is difficult to write a complete and useful reference that does not reflect that fact. If you need a good tutorial on Java Swing, you might want to look at the Core Java books by Cornell and read the chapters that apply to Swing. Cornell manages to carve out the basics of writing a Swing application very clearly without getting wrapped around the axle in details you do not need if you are a beginner. Then, come back to this book when you need to write an application to get the details you need. Since everything in Swing is a JavaBean, much of each component's behavior is controlled by a set of properties that are manipulated by accessor methods. Thus, this book has a table for each class that presents the class properties, the data type for each property, the accessor methods, and the default values. In addition, the book has plenty of demonstration code that shows how to use just about all of the various Swing components. The book even has chapters dedicated to changing the look and feel of components and also repainting issues, which loom large in Swing. You can download all of the book's code from the book's website at O'Reilly and Associates. I highly recommend this book to anyone who already knows the bare basics of writing applications with Swing and needs a useful reference. There is no better one out there in publication of which I am aware.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-02-05 19:49:43 EST)

06-04-05

7\7

Good Book With a Bad Title

This is for people who have a working knowledge of Swing and who want a comprehensive reference on their desks. I am preparing for the java Developer exam and thought this would help me get up to speed with Swing. But this is an over kill. Trying to learn Swing with this book is like trying to open a can of Coke with a bulldozer. It would have been more helpful if the Title was something like 'Swing Reference'. If you want to learn some Swing to get some work done very quickly stay away. If you are in the Guru class then go for it. 4 stars because it is indeed a well written reference (Juding from Chapter 1 and 3 and some skimming) But not 5 stars because the Title is misleading

(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-11 22:48:09 EST)

06-04-05

4\4

Good Book With a Bad Title

This is for people who have a working knowledge of Swing beginner and who want a comprehensive reference on their desks. I am a swing preparing for the Developer exam and thought this would help me get up to speed with Swing. But this is an over kill. Trying to learn Swing with this book is like trying to open a can of Coke with a bulldozer. It would have been more helpful if the Title was something like 'Swing Reference'. If you want to learn some Swing to get some work done very quickly stay away. If you are in the Guru class then go for it. 4 stars because it is indeed a well written reference (Juding from Chapter 1 and 3 and some skimming) But not 5 stars because the Title is misleading

(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-06 11:07:51 EST)

05-19-05

7\14

yikes!!

I can't recall a tech book so thoroughly unreadable! Maybe if I was more well versed in Swing this might make a little more sense, but seriously....it's great that these folks know all the inheritance lines and can spit them out in eight words or less, but seriously...imagine this as a classroom lecture..anybody awake? anybody still here? well, this class inherits from that or this implemements that interface, and if you look closely, you'll see how this references what we said 47 pages ago (or better yet, what we're gonna say 36 pages down the road!)...all well and good...but we're trying to write real programs and solve real problems....c'mon guys, we're not experts here, else we wouldn't be buying the book!! how about a litle real world usage...I don't have to time to check out the API docs to try and figure out what these guys are yakking about...a major disappointment.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-11 22:48:09 EST)

04-12-05

5\5

Pretty Thorough Reference

Man, has Swing grown; no wonder it took 5 authors to write this book! Anyway, they do a good job describing a very complex subject. The text is definitely more of a reference than a tutorial, but if that's what you're looking for then definitely check out this book...
*IF* you have another source for layout managers. Other reviewers have pointed this out as well. In my opinion, this topic deserves its own chapter because every time you put a component in a container you have to be aware of its layout manager. And when a dialog box gets complicated, as they are wont to do, you have layout managers dealing with each other ad infinitum - and that is precisely when you really need to understand how they work so you can make sense of what is going on when you resize something.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-11 22:48:09 EST)

04-11-05

4\4

Pretty Thorough Reference

(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-06 11:07:51 EST)

03-05-05

3\4

Best Swing reference out there with room for improvement

Any book that claims it can tell the readers everything they need for any huge APIs such as Swing is likely to be misleading. But there are utility books that try very hard to make the users as informed as possible. O'Reilly's Java Swing is one of these books. In 1200+ pages, this book tries to explain every little details of the Swing API from the fundamental JComponent to the very advanced manipulation of the Swing Look And Feel, and every major components in between.

There are still some very common issues that Swing developers wished this book had addressed, however. Such issues include the AWT event queue, AWT layout managers, and Swing threading issues. While this book does talk a bit about Swing threading, it does not explain a whole lot of the underlying mechanism of the AWT GUI and event queue that caused most developers trouble.

Overall, this book is a good elaboration on the Swing Javadoc, but not enough as a cure-all for Swing developers.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-11 22:48:09 EST)

11-06-04

3\4

Not quite what I had expected

I bought this book expecting that the book would make a good tutorial covering all aspects of Java Swing. I found that it does not cover all aspects of Java Swing, not even including the GridBagLayout or BorderLayout Layout Managers. It does not show how JSplitPane can be used within a JSplitPane for a complex layout using JSplitPane as it has been in another book I read. The book is a boring read and does ignite the imagination of the reader to build advanced GUI's. I regret buying the book.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-11 22:48:09 EST)

08-13-04

1\1

Very Dry Reading but Useful

Swing is a complicated technology, and large- Javax.Swing.* packages number 16, by far the largest in Java. The book is structured more as a reference than as a teaching guide, and is extremely dry reading. Definitely not for novice Java programmers. However, it does a good job in detailing the properties of each class and interface, and describing the architecture of SWING. It took me several chapters to get the hang of the general layout before I could start seeing the forest instead of the trees. And the second time through the book, I had a fairly good understanding of the SWING class models and how they work: The use of MVC Model-View-Controller architecture, default models. The authors do a poor job in explaining some of the less commonly used classes and concepts such as ToolKit, KeyStroke, Look and Feel UI. Also the examples, although good and all worked, are insufficient- especially in the event/listener area. I gave the book 4 stars only because I could develop a GUI after reading it, starting from ground 0- so that's what counts.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-06 11:07:51 EST)

05-21-04

(NA)

Not as good as advertized

The book as a whole is pleasant to read and covers wide enough range of topic. One huge glaring omission is the GridBagLayout (only mentions in passing while cover other less pwerful layout managers). What's up with that?

Don't hope to get much on the section on creating a custom editor kit. The book makes no mention about how to actually create alternative document structures. The on-line chapter is no help on this matter either. I wish the book will explain how ElementSpec class is used.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-06 11:07:51 EST)

03-30-04

2\2

Mostly a rehash of the Javadoc

I bought this book hoping for in-depth coverage of some of the more complicated aspects of Swing. Unfortunately, most of the book is just re-wording the javadoc for each class, with little advice on how to actually use it properly and effectively. This was a very disappointing purchase.

(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-06 11:07:52 EST)

08-01-03

4\8

Advanced SWING