Sams Teach Yourself Java 2 in 24 Hours

By Rogers Cadenhead

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • About the Technical Editor
  • Acknowledgments
  • We Want to Hear from You!
  • Reader Services
  • Introduction
  • Hour 1. Becoming a Programmer
  • Hour 2. Writing Your First Program
  • Hour 3. Vacationing in Java
  • Hour 4. Understanding How Java Programs Work
  • Part II: Learning the Basics of Programming
  • Hour 5. Storing and Changing Information in a Program
  • Hour 6. Using Strings to Communicate
  • Hour 7. Using Conditional Tests to Make Decisions
  • Hour 8. Repeating an Action with Loops
  • Part III: Working with Information in New Ways
  • Hour 9. Storing Information with Arrays
  • Hour 10. Creating Your First Object
  • Hour 11. Describing What Your Object Is Like
  • Hour 12. Making the Most of Existing Objects
  • Part IV: Programming a Graphical User Interface
  • Hour 13. Building a Simple User Interface
  • Hour 14. Laying Out a User Interface
  • Hour 15. Responding to User Input
  • Hour 16. Building a Complex User Interface
    • Scroll Panes
    • Sliders
    • Change Listeners
    • Menus
    • Workshop: Using Image Icons and Toolbars
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Quiz
    • Questions
    • Activities
  • Part V: Creating Multimedia Programs
  • Hour 17. Creating Interactive Web Programs
  • Hour 18. Handling Errors in a Program
  • Hour 19. Creating a Threaded Program
  • Hour 20. Reading and Writing Files
  • Part VI: Creating Multimedia Programs
  • Hour 21. Using Fonts and Color
  • Hour 22. Playing Sound Files
  • Hour 23. Working with Graphics
  • Hour 24. Creating Animation
  • Part VII: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Tackling New Features of Java 2 Version 1.4
  • Appendix B. Using the Java 2 Software Development Kit
  • Appendix C. Programming with the Java 2 Software Development Kit
  • Appendix D. Using Sun ONE Studio
  • Appendix E. Where to Go from Here: Java Resources
  • Appendix F. This Book's Web Site

Q&A

1. Is there a reason to display scrollbars only when they are needed, as opposed to displaying them all the time?

   Normally, the decision is based on how you want the interface to look. Some interface designers prefer to have the scrollbars visible at all times, while others make them visible only when the component needs them.

   With early implementations of scroll panes in Java 2, scrollbars would disappear in certain instances and never reappear. Though this appears to have been resolved, making scrollbars visible at all times is a way to work around a problem like this.

2. How can I find out about the rest of the Swing classes in the Java class library?

   On Sun's official Java site, the full documentation for the Java class library is published at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/. You can see the classes that are included in javax.swing, java.awt, and java.awt.event, the packages that were covered during the preceding four hours. All Swing classes and interfaces are documented, including their constructor methods, class variables, and instance variables. There are also links to some of Sun's official tutorials for Swing programmers.

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