The Internet changes lives by its impact on the computer world. Business, educators, and researchers find more uses for the Internet daily and that trend does not seem to be slowing down with age. Not only does the Internet change lives but the Internet is changing as well. Today's Internet looks nothing like the Internet of just three years ago. The Internet's constant seems to be change.
Part of the Internet's change is its ability to display sound, images, and animation services. The Internet's speed, however, does not always lend itself to advanced capabilities. The online services that provide Internet access have not eliminated the huge bottlenecks (or should that be small bottlenecks?) that choke the flow of data across the Internet. What can be done? It seems, or at least it seemed, as if the Internet's popularity would be its own limitation. As the number of users and capabilities grew, the Internet's technology could not keep up the pace.
In 1995, the Java language turned those Internet limitations into new possibilities. As you'll see throughout this book, the Internet's capabilities no longer have to be constrained by its online speed. Java lets Web developers forget about bottlenecks and concentrate on the Internet applications they want to create.
Despite its advantages, Java was itself a product that did not originally fulfill its potential. Internet developers simply did not have Java tools that allowed for the productive streamlined Internet development that programmers in other environments have had for years. As usual, Microsoft saw the need and produced Visual J++. As you will soon see, Visual J++ is the most powerful and interactive Java-development tool available.
This book is for you if you fall into one of the following categories:
In other words, this book will please just about everybody! Although it may seem boasting to make such a statement, the entire goal of this book was to address the needs of all reader levels. To do that you'll find that each new concept begins at a novice's level, explaining enough to get every reader up to the same level. Once the reader is in synch with the basics of a new Visual J++ concept, the book then dives into more depth. Feel free to skip the more technical parts of the chapters if you want a general overview of the material. Although designed to be read in sequence, little of the book's advanced material depends on advanced material from other chapters. Therefore, you'll be able to focus on the parts that mean the most to you.
Will you be a Visual J++ expert at the end of this book? Somewhat but you'll not learn everything there is to know about Visual J++ and Java programming. This book takes its title seriously; once you complete this text, you'll be using virtually all of Visual J++'s features and you'll be using the Java language to create your own Internet applications.
As its title suggests, this book is for programmers who have Visual J++. To use Visual J++, you must be running Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT. Both of those operating systems are 32-bit systems that hold the power one needs to utilize Visual J++'s features. If your computer runs those operating systems, uses a fast 486 (at least 70MHz) or Pentium processor with at least 8M of RAM (more is better), and 50M of free disk space (before installing Visual J++), you are sure to have the hardware you need to make Visual J++ work for you.
This book contains 19 chapters and two appendixes. This section briefly describes what you will find in each of those chapters.
Part I, "Introducing Visual J++," consists of chapters 1 through 5. This first part offers the basic information you'll need to work with the Visual J++ Developer Studio. In addition, you'll learn an overview of the Java-based Internet environment for which you'll create your Visual J++ programs.
Chapter 1, "Java and Visual J++," offers a birds-eye view of the Internet from the Visual J++-developer's point of view. You will learn how Visual J++ programs fit into the Web pages that you develop, and you will also see how the Internet Web pages trigger Visual J++ program runs.
Chapter 2, "Getting Started with Visual J++," describes Visual J++'s installation options and explains how you can install Visual J++ to suit your programming needs.
Chapter 3, "Working Within Visual J++," explores the complete interactive Visual J++ environment by telling you how to utilize most of Visual J++'s features. You will learn how to take advantage of the menu, toolbar, and windowing options inside Visual J++'s Developer Studio.
Chapter 4, "Using the Visual J++ Wizards," describes the process you'll go through to develop most of your initial Visual J++ programs. The wizard technology has changed the way users and developers do their jobs. Once you master the primary Visual J++ wizard, you will see how the wizard saves you programming time and effort.
Chapter 5, "Running Visual J++ Programs," shows you how to put the pieces together when you integrate your own developed program into a Web page and view the results from your Java-enabled Internet Web browsing software.
Part II, "Taking Visual J++ to Task," lets you use your new Visual J++ skills to understand and run the sample applications that come with Visual J++, extend those applications further, and test those applications.
Chapter 6, "Reviewing the Sample Code," describes each of the sample applications that come with Visual J++. The Visual J++ system includes a lot of special tutorial applications that demonstrate virtually every feature possible with Visual J++ and the Java language.
Chapter 7, "Reviewing Java's Nature," extends the sample code by showing you how easy it is for both programmers and non-programmers to implement simple changes that result in major revisions to Java code.
Chapter 8, "Using Visual J++'s Debugging Tools," teaches you how to use the Visual J++ error-testing and correcting tools. By learning how to use the debugging tools early, you'll be able to test the programs that you first write, and you'll be better equipped to learn the Java language faster and make Visual J++ immediately work for you.
Part III, "Programming with Visual J++," turns you into a programmer! If you've never programmed before, you'll appreciate the step-by-step approach taken by this part of the book.
Chapter 9, "Overview of Java Code," explains the "big picture" by exploring the depths of a simple Java-based Visual J++ program. Once you complete this chapter you will fully understand the ins and outs of the first program you created back in part I with the Visual J++ wizard and editor.
Chapter 10, "Java Language Fundamentals," starts at the most important detail of any programming language: the language's data. Many of the concepts you learn will be familiar if you've programmed before, and they'll help you if you ever learn another programming language.
Chapter 11, "Controlling Program Flow," teaches you how to control the behavior of a Visual J++ application. Once you master chapter 10's data concepts, you must learn how to make your programs operate on that data in an orderly fashion. This chapter's controlling statements work to control the sequence and repetition of your Visual J++ code.
Chapter 12, "Working with Classes," explains how to use Visual J++'s object-oriented nature. Java's developers based their new Java language on C++, one of the industry's most popular programming languages. The reason for C++'s success lies in its object-oriented nature. You'll be surprised at how much object-oriented technology that you understand after mastering this one simple chapter.
Part IV, "Advanced Visual J++ Programming," takes you to the next programming level. Now that you mastered the language fundamentals, it's time to grasp the more technical parts of the Java language so that you can write more powerful Visual J++ programs.
Chapter 13, "Utilizing Pre-Defined Classes," explores the depths of the built-in code supplied with Visual J++. Unlike the sample programs that you learned about in part II, the pre-defined classes operate on a more primitive level, giving you pre-defined building blocks you can use to put together your end-user applications. The pre-defined classes, for example, provide Windows-like controls such as buttons, menus, and scrolling lists that you can add to any Visual J++ application to give your programs a more polished effect.
Chapter 14, "Adding Graphics," makes an artist out of you! You'll learn how to add spicy graphics to your Visual J++ applications and make Visual J++ draw lines, circles, and other shapes. Of course, the Internet is gaining a more colorful appearance each day, and you will learn to embed colors that can make your Internet Web pages come alive.
Chapter 15, "Displaying Graphic Images," explains how you can load graphic photos and drawings from your disk, network, and even from the Internet and embed those images on your applet's window.
Part V, "Special Visual J++ Features," shows you how to add special technology to your Visual J++ programs so that your Internet sites contain the latest technology.
Chapter 16, "Exceptions and Threads," improves your programming skills and your programming responses. The exception-handling lets Visual J++ take some of the programming load off your shoulders. By adding threaded code to your Visual J++ programs you'll be able to take advantage of Visual J++'s multi-tasking capabilities.
Chapter 17, "ActiveX and COM Technologies," only scratches the ActiveX and COM surfaces but still manages to explain how to take advantage of these exciting new Microsoft-developed technologies that promise to take yesterday's OLE objects into tomorrow.
Part VI, "Visual J++: the Next Step," prepares you for life after Using Visual J++. Now that you've mastered the basics and many of the more advanced Visual J++ and Java aspects, this part of the book rounds out your current education by showing you what to expect in your Visual J++ future.
Chapter 18, "Your Visual J++ Future," explains the ideas Microsoft has for the Visual J++ technology and also explains some the more advanced Java technologies that you may want to explore to become a Visual J++ and Java guru.
Chapter 19, "Visual J++ Applet and AWT Class Reference," is a reference section that you can use with the other chapters as you learn Visual J++ and the Java language. You'll appreciate the table-like nature of this chapter as you hone your Visual J++ skills.
Part VII, "Appendixes," round out the book's content.
Appendix A, "Glossary," explains many Visual J++- and Java-related terms that you'll see throughout the book.
Appendix B, "Visual J++ Sites on the Web," points you to various Web sites that supply valuable resources and support for Visual J++ programmers.
This book uses the following typographical conventions to improve the book's usability:
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Everybody at Que hopes this book helps you use Visual J++, but in addition, everybody at Que hopes that you enjoy that experience as well. In the next few hundred pages you are going to use Visual J++ and build your programming skills. Gook luck in your Visual J++ programming and Internet development endeavors!
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