Java Glossary : AWT

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AWT

Abstract Windowing Toolkit. Unix people will tell you it means Another Widget Toolkit. It is a set of classes that let you write platform independent Java code that will hook into the native GUI systems on many different platforms.

Sun's AWT Guide : available:

on the web at java.Sun.com
on J: in the JDK 1.4.2_04: J:\j2sdk1.4.2_04\docs\guide\awt\index.html
on J: in the JDK 1.5 beta: J:\Program Files\Java\j2sdk1.5.0\docs\guide\awt\index.html

AWT vs Swing

Which should you use, AWT or Swing?

The advantage of Swing is it gives you finer control over the look and feel of your components. You can create a prettier app. They look the same on all platforms. AWT apps tend to look amateurish and Spartan.
AWT supports Ctrl-C Ctrl-V copy/paste without any coding. In Swing, it requires page and pages of bubblegum. Further you can't do it at all in unsigned Swing JApplets.
Swing is bigger and more complicated, and is not supported by earlier JVMs.
With Swing you must deal with the infuriatingly pointless complexity of ContentPanes.
AWT uses native GUI components where Swing draws everything itself with lightweight components using high level code. AWT thus tends to be faster.
Swing has JSpinner, JSLider and JColorChooser. There are no equivalents in Swing.

Equivalent Components in AWT and Swing
Applet	JApplet
Button	JButton
Canvas	JPanel
Checkbox	JCheckBox or JRadioButton
Choice	JComboBox
Color	Color
none	JColorChooser
Component	JComponent
Container	Container
Dialog	JDialog or JOptionPane
FileDialog	JFileChooser
none	JFormattedTextField
Frame	JFrame
Label	JLabel
List	JList + JScrollPane
LayoutManager	LayoutManager
Menu	JMenu
Panel	JPanel
ScrollPane	JScrollPane
none	JSlider
none	JSpinner
TextArea	JTextArea
TextField	JTextField
Window	JWindow

Applet ¤ Button ¤ Canvas ¤ Checkbox ¤ Choice ¤ Color ¤ Component ¤ Container ¤ Dialog ¤ Frame ¤ invalidate ¤ Label ¤ Menu ¤ MenuBar ¤ paint ¤ Panel ¤ repaint ¤ ScrollPane ¤ setVisible ¤ Swing ¤ TextArea ¤ TextField ¤ update ¤ validate ¤ Window

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