Filthy Rich Clients Developing Animated and Graphical Effects for Desktop Java¿ Applications

by Haase, Chet; Guy, Romain

• ISBN13: 9780132413930
• ISBN10: 0132413930
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-09
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

Filthy Rich Clientsrefers to ultra-graphically rich applications thatoozecool. They suck the user in from the outset and hang on to them with a death grip of excitement.Filthy Rich Clients: Developing Animated and Graphical Effects for Desktop Java Applicationsshows you how to build better, more effective, cooler desktop applications that intensify the user experience. The keys to Filthy Rich Clients are graphical and animated effects. These kinds of effects provide ways of enhancing the user experience of the application through more attractive GUIs, dynamic effects that give your application a pulse, and animated transitions that keep your user connected to the logical flow of the application. The book also discusses how to do soeffectively,making sure to enrich applications in sensible ways. In-depth coverage includes Graphics and GUI fundamentals:Dig deep into the internals of how Swing and Java 2D work together to display GUI applications onscreen. Learn how to maximize the flexibility of these libraries and use them most effectively. Performance:Follow in-depth discussions and tips throughout the book that will help you write high-performing GUI applications. Images:Understand how images are created and used to make better Java applications. Advanced graphics:Learn more about elements of Swing and Java 2D that are of particular benefit to Filthy Rich Clients. Animation:Discover general concepts of animation, as well as how to use the facilities provided in the Java platform. Learn new utility libraries that vastly simplify animations in Java. Effects:Learn how to create, customize, and use static and animated effectsthe mainstays of Filthy Rich Clients. Code examples illustrate key concepts, and the book's companion Web site, http://filthyrichclients.org , includes extensive demos, utility libraries, additional information on related technologies, and more. Informal, fun, and, most of all, useful, this book is great for any developer working with Java to build desktop applications.

Author Biography

Chet Haase is a client architect in the Java SE group at Sun Microsystems. Passionate about graphics, he works with all desktop Java technologies, including Swing and Java 2D. He’s worked with graphics technologies from 2D to 3D and from applications down to the driver level. Chet holds an M.S. in computer and information sciences from the University of Oregon and a B.A. in math from Carleton College.

Romain Guy has served as a software engineer at Google and on the Swing Team at Sun Microsystems. His primary interests are graphics and graphical user interface development. Romain has written for several print and online journals, and he holds an M.S. in computer and information sciences.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Graphics and GUI Fundamentals

Desktop Java Graphics APIs: Swing, AWT, and Java 2D

Swing Rendering Fundamentals

Graphics Fundamentals

Images

Performance

Advanced Graphics Rendering

Composites

Gradients

Image Processing

Glass Pane

Layered Panes

Repaint Manager

Animation

Animation Fundamentals

Smooth Moves

Timing Framework: Fundamentals

Timing Framework: Advanced Features

Effects

Static Effects

Dynamic Effects

Animated Transitions

Birth of a Filthy Rich Client

Conclusion

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Welcome toFilthy Rich Clients.This book is about building better, more effective, and cooler desktop applications using graphical and animated effects. We started writing this book after our successful session on the topic at the JavaOne conference in 2006. The session explored the use of animation, advanced 2D effects, and even some 3D effects to create richer applications. But it seemed we could have spoken for days on the subject. Understanding why you should develop such applications, how the technologies that enable them work, and how you can properly develop effects that enable Filthy Rich Clients is, well, a rich topic indeed.Hence, this book. Now we get to spend the next many pages with you, discussing fundamentals of Java, Swing, Java 2D, graphics, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), animation, performance, and advanced effects that build on all of these fundamentals in order to create beautiful applications.Please join us for the ride. It should be fun. OrganizationThe book has a sequential flow from beginning to end, so readers may want to work through it in that order, at least to understand how the material is arranged. There are plenty of code snippets and discussions in the book that are also appropriate for random access, although the technology behind any particular item might relate back to earlier discussions in the book. These relationships are generally noted when they arise so that you can more easily refer back to earlier material as background.The original intent of the book was to explain the cool effects that we show mostly toward the end of the book. But there is currently no book, to our knowledge, that explains the background of Swing, graphics, Java 2D rendering, and animation that is necessary to understand how the effects work. So we start at the beginning. We develop the fundamentals in these areas early on, building upon them as we go, so that by the time you read the material at the end of the book, everything should make sense. 1This book provides not only plenty of snazzy example effects you can use to create Filthy Rich Clients but also the knowledge of how it all works so that you can go further on your own. Part I: Graphics and GUI FundamentalsPart I covers the fundamental concepts of Java graphics and user interface programming that we use throughout the rest of the book. A comprehensive description of graphics and user interface development is beyond the scope of this book, but we cover the basic areas that enable Filthy Rich Clients sufficiently to get everyone up to speed with the APIs, techniques, and details necessary to understand the later chapters that build upon these elements. If you have a solid understanding of AWT, Java 2D, and Swing already, some of the material at the beginning of this section may be old hat for you. However, we build upon these basic concepts as we go. Also, there are plenty of interesting, deep tidbits throughout the book that should be useful to all Desktop Java programmers. Part II: Advanced Graphics RenderingPart II covers more advanced topics in Java 2D and Swing that are useful in creating rich interfaces. The first half of Part II covers graphics-specific technologies of composites, gradients, and image processing. The second half of Part II covers more Swing-focused technologies: the glass pane, layered panes, and the repaint manager. Part III: AnimationA Filthy Rich Client is not static; it is alive. It needs to move. It needs to transition. It needs a heartbeat so that the user knows it is there. Looking good is half the battle. Looking alive is the rest of it.Part III is about the fundamentals of animation that you can use to bring your applications to life. We cover some of the basics of animating graphics and GUIs, discuss the existing facilities in the Java SE core libraries for assisting in developing anima