Professional Java User Interfaces

Introduction

The interactivity thrill
The organization of the book
Book readers and personas

1. Putting GUI Development into Context

Introduction
Focusing on users
A functional decomposition for user interfaces
Tool selection: the Java singularity
Organizational aspects
Early design
Lifecycle models, processes and approaches
UML notation
Summary

2. Introduction to User Interface Design

The human factor
Display organization
Interaction styles
Conceptual frameworks for UI design
Assessing the quality of a GUI
Summary

3. Java GUI Design

Java technology for GUIs
Cost-driven design
Exploring the design space for a point chooser
Design guidelines for the Java platform
The Java look and feel design guidelines
Summary

4. Recurring User Interface Designs

GUI area organization
Choosers
Memory components
Lazy initialization
Preference dialogs
Waiting strategies
Flexible layout
Common dialogs
Command components
Accessibility
Navigation and keyboard support
Internationalization
Help support
Icons and images
Leveraging object-oriented programming
Summary

5. Iterative GUI Development with Java

Iterating wisely
Introduction to prototyping
Prototyping alternatives
GUI builders
Reusable prototyping widgets
GUI refactoring
Introduction to user interface testing
Software testing of Java GUIs
Usability testing of Java GUIs
JRE runtime management
Summary

6. Implementation Issues

Revisiting the abstract model
Content
Business domain
Data input-output
Making objects communicate
Separating data from views
Interaction and control
Some design patterns for GUIs
GUI complexity boosters
Summary

7. Code Organization

Introducing software architectures
Some common GUI architectures
A three-layer organization for GUI code
Two examples of a three-layer implementation
The service layer
Summary

8. Form-Based Rich Clients

Introduction
Reference functional model
Runtime data model
The cake-ordering application, the XP way
Summary

9. Web-Based User Interfaces

An overview of Web user interfaces
GUI design for the Web
Implementing Web applications with Java
From Web applications to rich clients
Summary

10. J2ME User Interfaces

Introduction to the MID profile
The MIDP UI API
Designing MIDP GUIs
Designing navigation
An example custom item
An example ad-hoc item
An example application
Summary

11. Java Tools and Technologies

Introduction to tool selection
Evaluating open source software
SWT or Swing?
Other GUI technologies
Utility libraries
Test tools
Profiling tools
GUI builders
Presentation layer technologies
Declarative GUIs with Java
Summary

12. Advanced Issues

Building on top of existing libraries
Memory management for complex GUIs
Restructuring existing GUI code
Exploiting technology
Domain-specific and Little languages
The future of Java GUIs
Summary

13. Rich Client Platforms

Introduction to Java rich client platforms
The NetBeans RCP
The Spring RCP
The Eclipse RCP
Choosing the best RCP for your needs
Legal issues
An example Eclipse RCP application
Summary

14. The Personal Portfolio Application

The scenario
Analysis
Choosing a technology
An initial GUI design
The final GUI
Implementation
Resources
The code
Deployment issues
An alternative, cost-driven implementation with JDNC
Summary

15. An Example OO User Interface

Introduction
Implementing object-oriented user interfaces
Some utility classes
Configuration views
Interacting with the user
Managing user commands
An example application
An alternative implementation using Naked Objects
Summary

16. An Example Ad-Hoc Component

Introduction
The Drawing Sandbox application
The Sandbox architecture
The Sandbox component
User interaction
Control
The whole picture
Stressing the software design
Introducing JHotdraw
Summary

A Questionnaire for Evaluating Java User Interfaces

A Questionnaire for Evaluating J2ME User Interfaces