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
    • Creating an Application
    • Sending Arguments to Applications
    • Applet Basics
    • Sending Parameters to Applets
    • Workshop: Viewing the Code Used to Run Applets
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Quiz
    • Activities
  • 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
  • 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

Hour 4. Understanding How Java Programs Work

An important distinction to make in Java programming is where your program is supposed to be running. Some programs are intended to work on your computer; you type in a command or click an icon to start them up. Other programs are intended to run as part of a World Wide Web page. You encountered several examples of this type of program during the previous hour's whirlwind vacation.

Java programs that run locally on your own computer are called applications. Programs that run on Web pages are called applets. During this hour, you'll learn why that distinction is important, and the following topics will be covered:

• How applications work
• Organizing an application
• Sending arguments to an application
• How applets work
• The required parts of an applet
• Sending parameters to an applet
• Using HTML tags to put an applet on a page

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