Learning Java [ui]

Layout managers

A layout manager controls the size and position of components in a panels, frames and windows.

Although possible, using absolute positioning of components (not using a layout manager) will result on interfaces that wont work on all platforms. This is because the size anfd apperance of componmets in the applet is dependant on the resolution and platform on which the browser is running.

the layout managers provided in Java are:


Grid		Places components in a regular array.
GridBag	Places components in a regular array like the Grid above, but each component can also span rows amd columns
Border		positively wierd
Flow	only useful for interfaces with no design.
Card		Press on the buttons at the top of the card to see a CardLayout in action. Useful for complex user interfaces. Can be used to build tabbed components.

There is support for writing a custom layout manager, but these should be enough. all the applets above are really the same applet that takes different parameters. The source can be found in the file LayoutDemo.java

User interface widgets

Basic widgets

The following basic interface widgets are provided in the awt toolkit.

Button	Checkbox	Choice

Label	List	Scrollbar

TextArea	TextField

Later I will discuss the writing of custom components. The applets in the examples above are really the same applet that takes different parameters. The source can be found in the file WidgetDemo.java

Containers

Widgets can live in containers:

Panel	Frame	Dialog
panels are used to contain other componenets. See the examples on layout managers above to see how panels are used	Applets are embedded in browsers and so do not have a frame, however there is no reason that applets can't create frames.	Dialogs can only be started from a frame.

Menus

And frames can have

MenuBar	MenuItem	CheckboxMenuItem

All of the frame and menu examples above are FrameDemo applets. The frames started from the applets are implemented by the class Simpleframe.

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