SWT/JFace in Action
GUI Design with Eclipse 3.0
Matthew Scarpino, Stephen Holder, Stanford Ng, and Laurent Mihalkovic

2004 | 496 pages
ISBN: 1932394273
$44.95 pBook + eBook (includes PDF, ePub, and Kindle)  
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Guides you through the process of developing Eclipse-based GUIs and shows how to build applications with features your users will love. Packed with examples and no fluff.

"Does a great job of explaining SWT/JFace at a good level of detail...an excellent book to learn how to use SWT/JFace and I can strongly recommend it."
-- JavaRanch.com

"well structured...covering every aspect needed by the GUI developer to build crisp applications.
-- JavaReference.com

"Introduces the SWT/JFace toolsets as simply but as thoroughly as possible."
-- Books-On-Line


RESOURCES

DESCRIPTION

SWT and JFace are Eclipse's graphical libraries. They enable you to build nimble and powerful Java GUIs--but this is only the beginning. With Draw2D and the Graphical Editing Framework, you can go beyond static applications and create full-featured editors. And with the Rich Client Platform, you can build customized workbenches whose capabilities far exceed those of traditional interfaces.

SWT/JFace in Action covers the territory, from simple widgets to complex graphics. It guides you through the process of developing Eclipse-based GUIs and shows how to build applications with features your users will love. The authors share their intimate knowledge of the subject with you in a friendly, readable style.

This book encourages you to learn through action. Each topic provides extensive code to show you how SWT/JFace works in practical applications. Not only do these examples help you understand the subject, they are a working set of programs you can reuse in your own interfaces.

What's Inside

ABOUT THE AUTHORS...

Matthew Scarpino has over ten years of software design and engineering experience. He uses Eclipse to build editing software for reconfigurable computing and has submitted code for Eclipse's graphical library. He lives in Fort Worth, TX.

Stephen Holder is a software engineer who has worked as a consultant for several large commercial and government agencies on enterprise level Java projects, including writing Eclipse plugins to streamline the development process. He currently resides in Tustin, California.

Stanford Ng is the cofounder of Nuglu, LLC and currently working on improving back-end systems at Automotive.com, a top 5 automotive e-commerce site. He is also a co-conspirator with Dr. Robert Nideffer behind the International award-winning Proxy/MAM research project.

Laurent Michalkovic is a technology consultant with 10 years' experience designing solutions in C/C++/Java/COM. He currently lives between Vancouver and Toronto, Canada.

Sample Chapters

Two sample chapters of SWT/JFace in Action are available in PDF format. You need Adobe's free Acrobat Reader software to view it. You may download Acrobat Reader here.

Chapter 4
Chapter 9



WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING

"As many people know by now, SWT and JFace are the GUI libraries used to create Eclipse, the popular open-source Java IDE. As fewer people know, these libraries can be used to build other applications as well. This book will teach you how. Its 13 chapters and four fat appendices give you all the information you'll need to create your own GUIs using this exciting new technology.

JFace is built on top of SWT just as Swing is built on AWT. Most books, quite naturally, discuss these layers separately. This book is unusual because it discusses SWT and JFace simultaneously. This is more useful for the reader as she gains an appreciation for all her options at once..."
-- JavaRanch.com


"The Standard Widget Toolkit otherwise known as SWT is a library of tools that can be combined to facilitate the programming of Graphical User Interfaces. As such, SWT/JFace is considered by some to be the follow-on to Swing which was the original Sun library for programming GUI's. Others consider that SWT/JFace violates the basic carved in stone commandment about platform independence. SWT/JFace has been tightly integrated into the Eclipse 3.0 integrated development environment, and has become the most popular Java toolset (as voted by Java developers).

The book introduces the SWT/JFace toolsets as simply but as thoroughly as possible. It combines both the high-level theory and the low-level details of the tools. The assumption made in this book is that the reader has some experience with Swing. I'd rank this as an intermediate to advanced level book. One very nice thing is the eBook edition and the ask the author capabilities that the publisher has put on their web site..."
-- Books-On-Line


"An excellent work! It is timely, comprehensive, and interestingly presented."
-Phil Hanna, SAS Institute Inc., author of JSP: The Complete Reference


"I recommend this book to anyone getting into development with the Eclipse libraries."
-Steve Gutz, Senior Software Developer, IBM, author of Up to Speed with Swing


"I really enjoyed the authors' style. It was easy to read, and the information stayed with me."
-Carl Hume, Software Architect


" ... a good and useful treatment. There is no other book like it in the market."
-Robert D. McGovern, co-author of Eclipse in Action

Source Code

Source code for SWT/JFace in Action is available in a single zip archive.

Source Code (70 kb)
Source Code Appendix C (6 kb)
Source Code Appendix D (68 kb)