AWT Enhancements
The AWT has changed in three ways:
-
The architecture has been improved to make large-scale GUI development
more feasible and add to basic functionality that was missing.
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Architectural support has been added for event handling by
non-components ("delegation"), data transfer (such as
cut-copy-paste), desktop color schemes (to improve consistency
of appearance), printing, mouseless operation,
component-specific cursors, and lightweight components.
-
Method names, arguments, and functionality have been made consistent.
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These changes make it possible for programs such as GUI
builders to query components to determine the components'
properties. They also make it easier for programmers to learn
and use the AWT API.
-
Overall quality improvements have been made and new features added.
-
For example, image and graphics functionality has improved,
with font support made more flexible to accommodate
internationalization. The new
PopupMenu class makes it possible
to have a menu that is not attached to a menu bar. The new
ScrollPane class makes implementing scrolling areas easy, as
well as increasing the speed of scrolling.
Where to Find Documentation
-
Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing
describes the new AWT event architecture
and other commonly used 1.1 features.
It also describes how the new JDK 1.1 GUI-related classes work.
The trail includes a detailed lesson on using the new event
system and on using the Swing lightweight components.
-
For details on exact enhancements made,
see the
AWT Enhancements Design Specification.
-
Read about the changes planned for GUI APIs for the
next major release of the JDK:
Java Foundation Classes.
