Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, second edition, provides essential information for anyone involved in creating cross-platform GUI (graphical user interface) applications and applets in the JavaTM programming language. In particular, this book offers design guidelines for software that uses the Swing classes together with the Java look and feel.

This revised and expanded edition contains a collection of toolbar graphics, lists of terms localized for European and Asian languages, and an appendix on look and feel switching. New and revised guidelines are provided throughout, and new sections discuss smooth interaction, the use of badges in button graphics, and revised standards for window titles.

Although an application’s human interface designer and software developer might well be the same person, the two jobs involve different tasks and require different skills and tools. Primarily, this book addresses the designer who chooses the interface elements, lays them out in a set of components, and designs the user interaction model for an application. (Unless specified otherwise, this book uses “application” to refer to both applets and applications.) This book should also prove useful for developers, technical writers, graphic artists, production and marketing specialists, and testers who participate in the creation of Java applications and applets.

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines focuses on design issues and human-computer interaction in the context of the Java look and feel. It also attempts to provide a common vocabulary for designers, developers, and other professionals.

The guidelines provided in this book are appropriate for GUI applications and applets that run on personal computers and network computers. They do not address the needs of software that runs on consumer electronic devices.

Chapters include:

• The Java Look and Feel
• The Java Foundation Classes
• Design Considerations
• Visual Design
• Application Graphics
• Behavior
• Windows and Panes
• Dialog Boxes and Alert Boxes
• Menus and Toolbars
• Basic Controls
• Text Components
• Selectable Lists, Tables, and Tree Components
• Keyboard Shortcuts, Mnemonics, and Other Keyboard Operations
• Graphics Repository
• Localization Word Lists
• Switching Look and Feel Designs

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