Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 26
Java Graphics
The Greatest Challenge
The greatest challenge that confronted the creators of the Java program-
minglanguagewastheimplementationofacross-platformGraphicalUser
Interface.Windowingenvironments,suchasMACOS,X-Windows,andthe
various versions of Microsoft Windows, all have unique features. The cre-
atorsofJavahadtofindthecommonelementsinallplatformswhileignor-
ingthefeaturesthatwereexclusiveofaparticularone.Inotherwords,they
hadtofindthecommongraphicsfunctionality,whilemakingsurethatJava
virtualmachineswouldaccommodatetheunavoidabledifferences.Atask
indeed!
The first implementation of a Java GUI was called the Java Abstract
Windowing Toolkit, or AWT. The original version had major shortcomings
and several nasty bugs, most of which have been fixed.
Applets and applications
TheWorldWideWebwasattheoriginoftheJavalanguageandcontinuesto
beoneofitsprincipalfieldsofapplication.SmallJavaprograms,called
ap-
plets
, execute within a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or
InternetExplorer.Theseprogramsexpandthefunctionalityofthebrowser
by providing the logic and data processing capabilities of Java.
Most of the support required for Java graphics at the applet level is lo-
cated within the browser. This means that the browser itself must solve
all of the platform-dependency issues. Java applications, on the other
hand, are full-fledged Java programs that are executed by the Java inter-
preter. In this topic we consider only Java applications.
